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During the 2009-2010 school year, Honors 10 students from the Class of 2012 at Kaiserslautern High School have been working on a special year-long project.
Their assignment: prove to the students and faculty that their historical figure, which they chose at the beginning of the school year, has influenced the world the most.
The project, dubbed “The Power of One,” required each participating student to research information that would support their claim that their person influenced the world the most. Topic people chosen for the project ranged from common historical figures, such as Adolf Hitler, to several famous entrepreneurs, such as Ray Kroc or Sam Walton.
Throughout the year, the students were required to complete assignments for each of their honors classes, which were split into English and world history.
In Honors English, the students were required to write a 10- to 15-page cite-based research paper that supported their influential claims, and in Honors World History, they were each assigned a quarterly project that stimulated both their creativity as well as their learning.
The projects in Honors World History were by far the most time consuming and required the most detail. They consisted of PowerPoint, oral presentations and countless hours of research. This year, because of the wide range of available technology new to KHS, the students were also required to design a 10 to 15-minute documentary about their person using new applications such as Windows Movie Maker and Macintosh’s iMovie.
Each project was individually unique and consisted of historical video footage, historical pictures, personalized music and even narration from the students. Students were assisted by school librarian Glenn Pearrow and the ETs, John Henk and Sarah Loomis.
After the documentaries were presented, the two honors teachers, Theodore Telle and Matt Johnson, narrowed the nearly 50 candidates down to the top 10 students who had proven their individual was the most influential.
The top 10 candidates included Albert Einstein, The Beatles, Cosimo de Medici, Ray Kroc, Walt Disney, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Guglielmo Marconi, Osama Bin Laden and Clara Barton.
On May 25, all honors students made their way to the KHS library where an all-day class debate took place.
Advanced Placement students and faculty from around the school were present and asked questions during the debates.
Each of the top 10 finalists made opening speeches and took questions from the audience, where a fiery argument usually arose.
By lunch, the students all had cast their votes for their top three choices, and as a result, The Beatles, Osama Bin Laden and Gugielmo Marconi were announced as finalists represented by students Barry Matheney, Derryk Scarvers and Robert Grant, respectively.
After lunch, the three students participated in a rapid-fire Q&A session and by 2:30 p.m., everyone had cast their vote for the winner — Osama Bin Laden.
The winner was presented with the “Coveted Crown of History” and all three finalists were awarded off-campus lunch privileges for one day.
All students participating in this project had a great time with both the quarterly projects as well as viewing the final debates.
