Kansas City,
19
January
2016
|
11:53 AM
America/Chicago

‘Genius Hour’ turns learning on its head

Twelve-year-old Dante Jackson of Lenexa loves baseball and is a big fan of the Kansas City Royals. So when it came time for the sixth-grader from Rosehill Elementary School in the Shawnee Mission School District to pick a topic for a school project, it came as no surprise that he chose the current World Series champs.

But what may be surprising is that Dante was able to get first-hand information about the organization for his project by interviewing a member of the Royals’ front office staff.

The idea of taking project research from a simple Internet search to a first-hand expert interview is all part of the idea of Genius Hour, where students at Rosehill Elementary get one hour a week in the school’s library to study their passions.

When it came time for sixth-grader Andrea Menjivar-Quijada to conduct an interview, her expert came to her. Andrea’s interest in becoming a doctor herself led her to interview Ryan Fischer, a pediatric transplant hepatologist at Children’s Mercy Hospital.

Andrea had many questions for the doctor who treats liver conditions in children, including how he chose his career.

“I asked him how he started in his career and he said he started by volunteering in a hospital,” Andrea said. “First he wanted to be an animator but then he studied medicine so he could be a doctor and help children.”

See the full story via The Kansas City Star.

Read more about Children's Mercy's Gastroenterology Clinic.