STEM and research are areas of study that many students decide to pursue after high school. If this is true for you, SIRS (Stem Inquiry and Research) or AP Research may be a class to look into. Previously, two separate classes, both SIRS and AP Research offer students the opportunity to choose a research topic and conduct experiments based on the topic that they chose.
When students first join the class, they spend about the first two months developing the topic idea they want to experiment with. Since they will be working with the same topic the whole year, a lot of emphasis is placed on truly understanding your research topic, and knowing not only if it interests you, but also how you can continue.
After this, students come up with a research question, a method for collecting their data, actually conduct the research, and end the year by presenting their ideas in various ways. Students have full creative freedom in their topics, and over the years the topics have varied in many different ways.
“They [the research topics] have been extremely varied,” science teacher Richard Thielsen said.
They have ranged from things that are more humanity based to things that have been very scientific. Last year I had a student study the impact of how rap music is perceived by different aged individuals, while at the same time I had students doing research on cancer cells and developing new ways to test treatment for cancers.
Amber Weatherspoon, now a senior, has been in SIRS since freshman year. “Last year, I did a comparative analysis between conventional versions of artificial intelligence that is used to classify different brain tumors, and I compared that to a new type of artificial intelligence that ignores that background,” Weatherspoon said. “Another person in the class did a project where she was looking into how inequalities affected hospitals in Chicago.”
Although combined into one class and completing similar work, there are some differences between entering through SIRS versus entering through AP Research. AP Research is an advanced placement class that allows students to take the AP test at the end of the year. Students are also required to take the AP Seminar class before they can take AP Research, since you have to take AP Seminar beforehand, students are not able to take AP Research until sophomore year.SIRS on the other hand is not an AP class, and you do not need to take a prerequisite class. Students from any grade are able to take SIRS.
“I love SIRS. I think it is truly an experience unlike any other class,” Weatherspoon said. “Instead of learning about something that’s already known to you, you get to explore something about the world that you didn’t already know, it’s such a unique class that not many people get within a high school class.”
