Traditional Subjects

Math
- Geocaching (especially helpful with graphing in 3D-latitude,
longitude, altitude)
- Architecture (field trip!)
- Sudoku tournament
- Visual illusions (can be conceptual—impossible shapes, pictures
seen two different ways, images within pictures—or actual—
sawing someone in half, making an object disappear, sticking
swords into a box etc.) for conceptual illusions, it would be fun to
try to draw them or devise some creative mechanism to make
one in real life, and for actual illusions it would be AWESOME to
go behind the scenes of a magic show, or to create our own
(making sure to get the correct measurements and mechanisms
so no one actually loses their legs)
- Community puzzle (one of the really hard 2,000 or 3,000 piece
varieties) to put in the honors lounge for everyone to work on
(puzzles help me de-stress)
Biology
- Going fishing (and cooking the fish???)
- Going camping (not pansy camping; survival skills in the real
outdoors)
- Planting a garden (can include info on edible plants, what plants
attract/repel bugs, deer, and other wild animals, plants with
healing properties like aloe, etc.)
Chemistry
- Making volcanoes and bottle rockets (juvenile, but it will never
get old)
- Refer to these websites:
o http://chemistry.about.com/od/glowingprojects/
o http://chemistry.about.com/od/advancedscienceprojects/
o http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/lab/experiments/cat
egory/chemistry
o My favorites include:
 Flash freezing things
 Glow in the dark bubbles
 Anything with candy
 Colorful fire
 All of them
English Literature
- Creative writing (and constructive criticism)
- Poetry (good poetry, no Emily Dickens.) reading and/or writing
- Book group where we read actual, good books (usually quite
unlike those assigned to us in English classes)
I’m not really an English person, but I enjoy writing stories (actually I prefer
illustrating them in the form of comics and cartoons), reading poetry, and
reading books that I find engaging.
Also, on a side note, I have one criticism of most English groups/classes that
are not school-based: they force participants to share their
stories/poems/thoughts and feelings/etc. If I am in the zone and I write
something personal, or if I’m having writers block and my piece comes out
so awfully that I don’t even want criticism, I should not have to share it.
Physics
- Uhm………
American History
- Wars (WWI, WWII, the Vietnam War, the Korean War, the Civil
War, the Cold War; can include propaganda, women’s roles,
weaponry used, tactics employed, enemy/POW treatment on
both sides)
- Fighting for diversity in the US (racial, female, and LGBTQ*
struggles and history; include those that we don’t often hear
about like Asian persecution during WWII on the west coast)
- Native American life and culture (before the English arrived and
how the English arrival affected it)—if we could visit a Native
American reservation I might cry with happiness.
Nontraditional but still “educational” Subjects
Ancient Culture and Mythology
Any and all, especially that of Egypt and the Norsemen. I can’t think of any
fun activities to do with it though.
Psychology
- Getting people to do stuff for you (apparently a thing that people
actively do)
- How to win an argument
- Setting up a space to maximize productivity, creativity,
relaxation, and other important mindsets (should include color,
placement of furniture, type of furniture, additives for the room
(like a fish tank), amount of light, etc.)
- Meditation, Visualization, and Hypnotism (I’ve heard such great
things but have no idea where to begin)
Environmental Science
- Everyday actions to save the planet (things I can actually do to
reduce my carbon footprint)
- Environmentally healthy products for my dorm (cleaners, paper
towels made from bamboo instead of actual trees, foods grown
without N or P enriched fertilizers, etc.)
- Creating an environmentally friendly home (things to fix that can
help the environment like opening windows instead of putting
 the AC on, taking shorter showers, turning off the faucet when
you brush your teeth, etc.)
All these things coupled with an overview of the actual effects of high
amounts of carbon on the world (the ozone layer, the polar icecaps, the
weather, different climates worldwide, etc.) would make a powerful and
informative lecture. We could do a small craft or activity to visualize the
effects of global climate change or to make something environmentally
friendly/useful, or we could plant trees!
*I am not sure how active SEA (our environmental club) is, I really want
to be a part of it, but I have ballroom during their meetings and so
cannot attend. If I have suggested things that they already do/sponsor,
please let me know!
Language(s)
I have wanted to speak (or sign) another language since before I can
remember. The only problem with that is, in order to learn a language, one
must speak it every day and occasionally practice with native speakers. If
there were others in the honors program (preferably a sizeable number) who
would take the time out to learn the basics (through pimsleur if possible, his
method is sublime) of the same language, it would be easy to practice in
passing in the halls or over dinner at the caf. Do you think there would be
any interest?
Outer Space
- Make a Styrofoam solar system (and paint it!)
- Sustaining life on Mars (Is it possible? Would you do it? Should
we do it?)
- Alien life
- Stargazing, reading the constellations like a map, maybe throw
in some astrology
Miscellaneous Other
Life Skills
After graduation, most students are left with zero knowledge about how to
function in the real world; some people still cannot do their own laundry.
- How to balance a checkbook (how to do anything at the bank-
take out a mortgage, know when to get a checking vs savings
account, get a safety deposit box and what I should put into that,
etc.)
- How to save for kids’ college and my retirement while still
maintaining a social life and feeding myself (also how much do I
need for those things?)
- How to properly maintain a home (can include best uses of
space, how to make rooms seem bigger, what color should I
paint the bedroom vs kitchen, do I really need to clean the
 gutters and if so how do I do that, maybe a lesson in laundry for
some of my classmates, etc.)
- How to balance bills (including “what bills will I have?” because I
can only name car, electricity and mortgage and I feel like there
are going to be more)
- How to cook (should include foods to NEVER eat, why not to refill
plastic water bottles like Poland Springs, essentials of a healthy
diet, best way to grease a pan—pam vs butter vs other oils, what
is the best material for pots and pans to be made of—iron vs
stainless steel vs ceramic vs nonstick whatever-it-is, etc.)
- How to fix minor problems with my car, my plumbing, my
electricity, etc.
- How to write a resume and ace an interview
I think that these would be the most popular and attended activities that I
have suggested so far, but maybe that’s because my parents neglected to
teach me these things. Either way, having a faux family and a budget would
definitely be fun! As would being given a list of wacky skills and being told
to make yourself look appealing to an interviewer for a really unrelated job.
For cooking, we could go out to eat and then over the next week everyone
would have to make a better/healthier/different version of his/her dinner.
Government
I don’t actually know anything about our government aside from the whole
thing about the electoral college.
- How do I vote? Does it matter what party I register as? Is voting
an effective way to make changes? What should I know to make
an informed vote?
- How to get the most accurate information about a candidate and
his/her policies (and how to know which of these will actually be
fulfilled)
- What issues are most important from an objective standpoint (ie
national finance over marital policy)?
This entire category is quite difficult to make into something fun, but there
may be ways. Perhaps hold a mock election for “the honors society’s
superlatives”. Pick a few (funniest, classiest, best cook, WHATEVER) and
have candidates advertise themselves/bash other candidates, working these
questions into weekly or every other week meetings. (This would probably
not take more than 2-4 meetings to cover everything.)
Being Healthy
- GMO’s vs organic food
- What is a balanced diet? I know that 2,000-calorie BS on cereal
boxes is a lie.
- Let’s go hiking! There is a group called “hike to yoga” that
should be far more advertised. They hike up the mountain and
 do yoga every few weeks and ITS AWESOME! But I would love it
if we went more often.
- Memory help (daily activities that improve memory and/or brain
sharpness)
- The placebo effect and the power of a positive attitude
- Making exercise fun (THERE ARE WAYS, I KNOW IT)
Superheroes
- Genetics: cloning and gene selection
- Monster makeup and all out costumes for Halloween!
- Calculate the force of Superman’s punch (I found a physics
idea!!!)
- To kill or not to kill (some villains escape jail every time only to
kill countless more innocent people—should heroes just sentence
them to death?) actually, there’s a lot to speculate on with the
ethics of superpowers
- Comic book book club!
Art
- Painting (oil, water color, finger, splatter, canvas, still life, action,
of QU, on sleeping giant, on a pot, painting nails, honestly any
kind of painting ever)
- Pottery making
- Sculpting of some kind (most preferably with play dough)
- Drawing/sketching (pencils, pens, crayons, etc.)
- Cartoon making (comic strips or in adobe flash)
- Advertising (how to effectively use color, repetition, lettering,
music, etc. to get people to buy your product)