Coppell High School juniors walk into Pinkerton Elementary School each week, not as visitors, but as mentors, helping fifth graders research and raise awareness about prominent issues around the world. 

The International Baccalaureate (IB) Primary Years Programme (PYP) exhibition project is an annual initiative for IB students at Pinkerton Elementary. Each group showcases a global issue, branching from one of the 17 United Nation sustainability goals, that is meaningful to them and work towards a solution that is attainable and create a project to present to their community members.

Starting late February, CHS IB Diploma program students partner with Pinkerton teachers to help mentor students throughout their project.

The mentorship program was started in 2015 by former IB teacher Micheal Vergien and Pinkerton STEAM teacher Micheal Upchurch. IB students assist fifth graders in narrowing down their research topics and brainstorming possible plans to better the community while asking specific questions on how to showcase their topic. They also help students prepare presentations for parents, teachers and community members to view during exhibition night on May 13.  

With the consolidation of Pinkerton, the program will shift to Wilson Elementary School. This program will continue with the goal of growing the IB programs.    

“I think moving into a new building allows us to expand in size and as we increase enrollment in the PYP program, we’re hoping to further develop the high school diploma program,” Pinkerton Elementary IB coordinator Marnie Ward said. “I’m just excited to see the opportunity for it to grow and for other families to learn and experience what we’ve been doing at Pinkerton all this time.”

While the fifth graders gain mentorship, the high schoolers gain skills such as collaboration and leadership, which are essential for their academic journey as an IB student.    

“On our side, students can use this as something that they can put in for their creativity, action and service portfolio (CASP) that all of the IB diploma students have to complete for their IB diploma, where they have to have a learning objective for each of the experiences that they put in there and have to reflect on those experiences,” IB diploma coordinator Micheal Brock said. 

Junior Neha Sanjay’s group of students chose addiction as their topic.  According to Ward, the topic is frequently chosen due to its personal connection to Pinkerton P.E. teacher Colleen Michaelis who lost her child to addiction. Sanjay’s group is creating cards to send to rehab centers in Florida. 

“It’s really empowering that they were able to make a change in the lives of those people and showed me that that’s an option that I could be doing too,” Sanjay said. “You don’t really know what effect your card will have on them. I hadn’t really considered reaching out to rehab centers and writing cards for them because as a kid, your card writing skills are only a certain depth, but then once you are older, you can write more like cards that will probably connect to them more.” 

Students and teachers alike, have seen the impact that the IB Diploma students have made on their mentees, in both education and personal connections. 

“The relationship is key when it comes to mentoring,” Ward said. “When there’s a mentor to guide you, they can make suggestions without saying ‘this is what you should do,’ and I think that’s been valuable for our kids because they can learn from this experience.” 

The project has caused Pinkerton students to think beyond the classroom and encouraged them to have a real world impact and for mentors to continue to research these topics. IB senior Samriddhi Baranwal helped mentor her group last year on their project about Texas education legislation.  

“It’s important to have a good knowledge of the topic and truly believe in it yourself before you promote that,” Baranwal said. “Having those minuscule perspective changes can really affect how someone thinks about things growing up.”  

Students and teachers agree this project not only teaches students how to research and collaborate, but how to make an impact in their community. 

“What we want is that you’ve learned something new — either there’s an action that you can take or there’s a mindset that you need to change that’s going to make a bigger impact,” Ward said. “We want this action to be something that you’ll carry with you always that you can share with other people along the way.” 

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