The Gifted S.P.A.R.K.S. and Think Tank courses are both offered at Landstown High School every semester. Each course is a semester course in which students will work to refine online classroom skills, and research skills and where students will begin to develop and refine a topic that really interests them. The idea behind Think Tank is to really be able to delve deep into a topic that maybe you've really had in interest in but that your classes don't cover, or to take an idea presented to you in one of your classes, and go deeper than the traditional classroom setting has time to. The Think Tank course can be a one-time deal for you, or can be the beginning of several years of investigation for you, taking it to the highest level of application. This is a "blended" course, meaning that most of it occurs online with a few face-to-face meetings, as you find a need for them. Students learn to collaborate online and share their research with their gifted online community. This course will meet the online requirement for graduation.
If you chose to proceed on to SPARKS during another semester of high school, you would be asked to take the idea you developed in Think Tank and begin to think in terms of a problem-solution type investigation. This takes the idea beyond just looking up and researching all that is out there and you being to formulate your own, new ideas on the topic. You then can even proceed to an Independent Study Project another semester where you try out your solution in the real world.
Students completing these courses have the chance to move on to an Independent Study course also. This course gives students the chance to develop their own syllabus, course material and final product option, under the direction of a mentor they seek out in the field of study. Once the syllabus is approved, students work closely with their mentor for the semester, and their final product is evaluated according to industry standards set forth by their mentor.
Come and see Mrs. Calma in the Media Center office if you are interested in registering for one of these courses. Since these are online courses, they do not impact your day-to-day schedule and will not change any classes you may have already registered for. These courses do count towards your GPA and get .5 credits per course that you take. You may take all three courses, or just one, and you may take them any semester of high school.