Cultivating Curious Minds

RESEARCH AT FLINTRIDGE SACRED HEART

How often are you able to listen to high school students present research with such titles as “How to Make Medical Implants Safer: The Answer Might be in Red Wine” and “May the Force Be with You, and Also with You: Luke Skywalker-Christ of Star Wars”?

When students begin their college careers, they often fnd themselves overwhelmed by the amount of research that has to be done. The graduating seniors at Flintridge Sacred Heart will have no such struggle. The fruits of their four-year experience in the school’s unique research program culminated during the Senior Research Showcase. At the Showcase, students enthusiastically and passionately shared fndings from their year-long research projects.

WE START BY CULTIVATING CURIOUS MINDS. WE ENCOURAGE STUDENTS TO BLEND PERSONAL INTERESTS WITH ACADEMIC ONES AS THEY EXPLORE THE COMPLEX SYSTEMS THAT MAKE UP OUR MODERN WORLD. THE CAPSTONE PROJECT REFLECTS ALL THAT THEY LEARNED THROUGH THE YEAR-LONG PROCESS.

- Nora Murphy

For their senior projects, students were encouraged to pursue areas that interested them. Projects covered subjects such as psychology, religion, the arts, and gender studies, with topics ranging from the impact of language barriers on access to healthcare to the consequences of post-Civil War politics on Black families. Honors engineering students used research methods to create and test brand new technology such as an integrated machine learning camera for wildlife detection and a portable prosthetic cooling system for lower extremity amputees.

Flintridge Sacred Heart’s groundbreaking research program was created to give young women experience writing and presenting at the quality that is immediately expected of them their freshman year

of college. University-level instructors and librarians expressed that freshmen were entering without the mindset and skills required to carry out research.

“We start by cultivating curious minds. We encourage students to blend personal interests with academic ones as they explore the complex systems that make up our modern world. The capstone project refects all that they learned through the year-long process,” said Nora Murphy, the creator and director.

At Flintridge Sacred Heart, learning and practicing research skills isn’t a one-day lesson or even a semester course. It is integrated into every class and subject from day one, but has a specifc focus in the last year. After four years of growing research profciency, these young women have the tools for questioning, synthesizing and presenting information of all kinds. The Research Showcase demonstrates that Flintridge Sacred Heart seniors are up to the challenges of college and beyond.