Good morning, everyone!

Today I will be presenting to you the advantages of doing project work in education.
For those of you who might not know, project work refers to a method of learning
through tangible means, that is, through a holistic environment where the students can
develop their skills in a more experimental manner. Project work can be developed in a
multitude of ways, but it’s not unlikely for the students to feel like it overwhelms them
and puts an even heavier burden on their – already loaded – shoulders. However, with
this presentation I intend to show you the brighter side of project work, as well as
explain to you a little bit more of how it can revolutionize the way we understand the
world around us.

Let me begin by saying that the main reason why I believe in the beneficial effects of
project work is because I have experienced them myself. Last semester, I was involved
in a project regarding our annual “Feira das Colheitas”, where the goal was to promote
more sustainable and varied ways of conducting agricultural procedures, with an
emphasis on public health and on our collective ecological footprint. Throughout the
duration of this project, me and my colleagues conducted several interviews with the
guest representatives of the public entities that were willing to talk to us and also with
the local producers who chose to partake in this initiative. Besides that, we
photographed the whole event, so that we could register every important thing that
happened there. Through this encounter with local people, we were able to fully
comprehend the struggles of these people and also the relevance of the work that they
do, not only in what comes to our local economy, but also in what regards to our planet
as a whole.

The involvement in this project taught us lessons that we could never have understood
otherwise. It showed us how to do our own research, how to write an interview script,
how to properly manage our time, how to approach the subject matter at hand with
care and attention, how to test our own aptitudes, among so many other valuable
things. At the same time, it proved that practical experience can be more rewarding
than cognitive learning, since it provides a sense of satisfaction that no other learning
tool can emulate. By doing all the work by ourselves, we realised that we are much
more capable than we think we are and that makes us feel empowered and willing to
keep learning.

I want to keep learning and I think you should too.