Project Excerpts & Commentary: Financial Aid

The Story Behind the Financial Aid Project

This project was prepared as an entry for the Salomon Smith Barney Quality of Life competition. The competition asks students to identify a quality of life problem or issue in their community and to prepare a financially feasible solution and recommendation. A group of three students developed this project over a period of five months. They were scheduled for advisement with a teacher once a week as part of their Social Science Research class. The Social Science Research class was designed to provide students with hands-on research and writing skills. The students were expected to meet on their own before school, after school and on weekends in addition to their scheduled class advisement. They received feedback during the project from teachers and peers.

The students identified five possible topics that they were all interested in working on. They conducted preliminary secondary research in order to narrow down their topic (using public libraries, college and university libraries, and the Internet). They discarded any topic that their research indicated could not be solved in a reasonable manner. After this selection process, the students decided to focus on what they could do about the difficulties experienced by immigrant families when applying for financial aid.

After deciding on their topic, the students researched the background and extent of the problem, and possible solutions based on attempts of other communities to solve this or a similar problem. As part of their primary research, the students developed a questionnaire which was translated into the languages of the major immigrant groups in Queens.

Based on the results of their research, the students developed a recommendation to address the problem that they had identified. Their recommendation incorporated the students’ original ideas along with information collected during their research. The students also developed a budget for implementation of their recommendation.

The students made a ten minute oral presentation of their project to the personnel at Salomon Smith Barney and a panel of community leaders and answered questions from the panel.

As a result of this project, the Superintendent of Queens High Schools decided to implement the students’ proposal and The Tribune, the largest Chinese community newspaper in New York City, asked for assistance in conducting a workshop for the Chinese community on applying for financial aid using the revised materials the students developed.

The written work produced as part of Applied Learning projects commonly contains some errors. Documentation of these projects includes notes, journal entries and plans that students produced as working documents for their personal use. These kinds of documents were not prepared with the expectation of eventual publication and they have not been revised for inclusion in this book.

It is expected that finished work produced as part of an Applied Learning project will contain virtually error free writing.

This project illustrates a standard-setting performance for the following parts of the standards:
a	Communication: Make an oral presentation.
b	Communication: Prepare a formal written proposal or report.
c	Communication: Publish information.
a	Information: Gather information.
c	Information: Use information technology.
e	Information: Create, edit, and analyze a spreadsheet.

What the work shows a Information Tools and Techniques: The student gathers information to assist in completing project work; that is, the student: • identifies potential sources of information to assist in completing the project; • uses appropriate techniques to collect the information, e.g., considers sampling issues in conducting a survey; • interprets and analyzes the information; • evaluates the information in terms of completeness, relevance, and validity; • shows evidence of research in the completed project. After they settled on their topic, the students did intensive secondary research in order to ascertain: • the background of the problem or issue; • the extent of the problem or issue; • possible solutions based on attempts of other communities to solve this or a similar problem. The students used this research to provide the information for the section of their final report entitled “Background.” Evidence of their research and their ability to identify potential sources of information is also evident throughout their final report.
	As part of their research, the students developed a questionnaire. They distributed the questionnaire to high schools throughout the borough in order to assure that the sample was not skewed. This survey had two elements; the students used the questionnaire as a needs assessment to verify the significance and the extent of this problem in their community and they also used it to validate their proposed solution. The students enlisted help to translate the questionnaire into the languages of the major immigrant groups in Queens. This was critical to the quality of their research given the goal of tackling the difficulties experienced by immigrant families when applying for financial aid. The students used the results of their primary research to develop a section of the paper entitled “Methods and Relevance of Research.” Included here are two of the spreadsheets that the students created to analyze the information collected through the surveys. The spreadsheet software they used displays the data in tabular and numeric format. The students were able to create multiple graphs using the spreadsheet and additional word-processing and database software.
e Information Tools and Techniques: The student creates, edits, and analyzes a spreadsheet of information that displays data in tabular, numeric format and includes multiple graphs; that is, the student: • creates a spreadsheet that displays the use of formulas and functions; • uses features of the software to sort, arrange, display, and extract data for specific purposes; • uses features of the software to create multiple spreadsheets and to synthesize the spreadsheets into a single presentation. The students analyzed their data using the computer statistics programs Minitab, Excel, and Lotus. The students analyzed the reports generated by the statistics software. The handwritten notes on this report show some of the early stages of their interpretation of the survey results.

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