Project Week Catalog

Are you interested in exploring Chinese culture through a series of hands-on activities? Then this is the project for you.

Your design team has been contracted to engineer an autonomous system that can be launched to record damage in the event of a disaster.  Worldwide, there are over one billion people living in areas that are unreachable by roads.  Delivering aid to these people requires precision and accuracy that your system will locate and record. 

If you like creative projects and like working with your hands then join us and learn to SEW BEAUTIFULLY! Learning to sew is a valuable skill that will serve you well, and it's fun to create projects for your family, friends and home.

People with independent ideas have been getting their word out since there were printing presses.  A zine is a self-produced book about anything you want because you are the creator, publisher and bookmaker.  All you need is paper and a printer.  And, of course, an idea – that’s where this project comes in!

Students will meet at the South Lake Union Center for Wooden Boats where we will build a full-sized, fully functional boat in a week with the guidance of a professional boat builder!  Additionally, we will take sailing lessons and learn how to sail the boat we built by the time we finish building it.  Students will become members of the Center for Wooden Boats and will have the opportunity to return at any time to take out any boat in the inventory of boats there... including the new one we will donate at the end of our project!

Mike Davidson and Bill Johns will be leading a team to build an 8' x 12' Tiny House that, once finished, will be transported to a Tiny House village somewhere in Seattle.  It will provide housing, and a secure, supported, empowering place for someone who is experiencing homelessness.  We will be building the house right on campus and will spend some long days framing, sheathing, roofing, running electricity, insulating, installing a door and windows, doing finish carpentry, flooring and painting.

Ceramic clay is a great medium for creating utilitarian objects, as well as, sculptural works of art. We will learn and explore various hand-building techniques. We will have studio time to create and one day dedicated to visiting working ceramic art studios. No previous experience is necessary. Come with your ideas or be inspired by others. Final pieces will be fired and available for pick-up sometime after spring break.

Ever been to the circus and wondered how they learn to do their breathtaking acts? Ever wanted to to challenge yourself to be brave and try something you've never tried before?  Then Circus Week is for you!

This project week will challenge your courage and creativity as you learn how to do a range of circus arts: silks, lyra, hoop, juggling, acrobatics, trampoline, and possibly even flying trapeze!  We will be taught by the experts at SANCA: School of Acrobats and New Circus Arts in Seattle.   

*Students have already been selected for this Project Week after having gone through an application process. If you are unsure if you have been selected, please reach out to the College Counseling department.

Participants will spend five days visiting colleges and universities in New England. Visits to each campus will include a guided tour, admission and information session, and the opportunity to meet with Overlake alumni who are currently attending each school. 

This Project Week experience is limited to current 10th and 11th grade students at Overlake.

This is a highly rewarding week of participating in service projects that support the needs of our community. Over the course of the week we'll have the opportunity to visit a variety of locations around the Seattle metropolitan area.

This week provides an opportunity to work with elementary school children and their teachers at John Muir Elementary School, a diverse Title I public school in Kirkland and another partner school to be determined.

Creative Paper provides an opportunity to blend creativity, organization, planning and outreach by challenging students to make beautiful things that inspire themselves and others. We will use paper and other materials to make beautiful paper projects come to life. Ideas of projects include preserving memories in scrapbook pages, making cards for loved ones or a specific set of holidays or celebrations, creating a paper collage or art piece for your room or as a gift, make a paper/cardboard box with different compartments for treasures, make a geometric paper sculpture etc. All participants should be willing to learn new skills, make mistakes, support each other and have a lot of fun. All participants will finish project week with a completed paper project to be used or gifted at the end of the week.

Sculpey clay is a type of oven-bake modeling clay composed of resins and polymers that is available in a multitude of colors. Polymer oven-bake clay is perfect for everything from custom jewelry pieces, beads, home décor, ornaments, sculptures, decorations and anything else you can dream up! The best part about oven-bake clay? It is incredibly soft and malleable, and will retain its freshness even when exposed to air. Your creations are only permanently hardened once the clay is baked at low temperatures in a home oven or toaster oven.

This project explores dances from a variety of cultures. We will explore Hip Hop, Swing/Ballroom, Line Dancing, Samba and contemporary as well as traditional Afro-Caribbean and African Dances. We will work with several guest artists, studying dance and other movement forms while considering their origins and cultural impact. This project also involves some research and watching online examples of each form we will learn over the week. Learning about the music that supports each dance form is also part of our exploration. 

Spend a week in the wilderness of eastern Oregon on the Deschutes River! White-water rafting, and hiking, as you make your way down the river, students will work together to meet the challenges of this course designed especially for our students.

Spend a week in the wilderness of eastern Oregon on the Deschutes River! White-water rafting, and hiking, as you make your way down the river, students will work together to meet the challenges of this course designed especially for our students.

Explore the Island of Oahu through native Hawaiian landscapes, ecology, service, and hiking. Students will reflect on the human impact on local ecological systems and will hear directly from native Hawaiians working in the fields of Oahu. Our activities will be experiential in nature and students will not only learn about the ecology, but will also participate in restoration projects and make an impact on the future sustainability of agriculture on Oahu.

In this project students will learn about languages in danger of extinction in the Americas and the consequences for communities that speak them. After learning about these communities, students will create a conceptual mural by painting the names of the languages in danger of extinction on the walls of the hallway inside the World Languages building. This mural will serve as a reminder of the challenges many native communities face today as their native languages continue to disappear.

We will work on honing our cooperative puzzle solving skills with a series of escape room experiences, puzzles, and games. We will be visiting escape rooms around the East Side to hone our teamwork and problem solving abilities. Escape rooms are a fantastic way to learn to think laterally, work as a team, and experience some of the coolest, most immersive games ever designed! We will also try some escape-rooms-in-a-box (including one that brings us into downtown Redmond and incorporates local history) and other cooperative puzzles and games.

How often do you think critically about the food you eat every day? Where does it come from? How does food impact you, your local community, and the larger community around us? Join us in Everybody Eats, where we will learn more about how to cook for ourselves, serve those in our community who face food insecurity, and plant the seeds for growth and justice in the future. 

Have you ever seen a performance so moving it gave you chills?

Have you stared at a work of art and been so drawn to it you couldn't look away?

Have you ever looked at a building's architecture and stood in awe of it's craftsmanship?

Learning how to live a healthy and active lifestyle is an important part of becoming an adult. This project is an introduction to some lifelong activities for students to participate in that promote a healthy and active lifestyle. These activities will be all throughout the greater Seattle area. Some of the activities include biking the Snoqualmie Valley Trail, beach volleyball and spikeball at Alki Beach, disc golf, foot golf, mini golf, hiking and much more. 

We will spend the week camping out, hiking, and rock climbing in one of the most unique National Parks.  Students will learn about the park's history, flora, and fauna in the Mohave Desert, the extensive trail system in the park, rock climbing gear and techniques, and camping and cooking skills with a group.  Students will also learn and practice leadership skills through the different activities, evening discussions, and by being leader of the day.  No rock-climbing experience is necessary, but this trip's members will participate in the Quarter 3 Overlake Climbing Club leading up to Proje

We will spend the week camping out, hiking, and rock climbing in one of the most unique National Parks.  Students will learn about the parks history, flora and fauna in the Mohave Desert, the extensive trail system in the park, rock climbing gear and techniques, and camping and cooking skills with a group.  Students will also be able to learn and practice leadership skills through the different activities, evening discussions, and by being leader of the day.  No rock climbing experience is necessary.

Students will spend the week exploring Seattle's food culture and learning about plants and edibles native to Puget Sound, as they prepare to create handmade ceramics to support the Empty Bowls project (https://www.emptybowls.com/). Students will spend half of the week learning about the culinary landscape in Seattle by eating at and visiting cultural centers, museums, and restaurants, along with touring native forests at the UW Botanic Garden to understand more about the history of plants and edibles native to the Puget Sound.

Students will spend the week exploring Seattle's food culture and learning about plants and edibles native to Puget Sound, as they prepare to create handmade ceramics to support the Empty Bowls project (https://www.emptybowls.com/). Students will spend half of the week learning about the culinary landscape in Seattle by eating at and visiting cultural centers, museums, and restaurants, along with touring native forests at the UW Botanic Garden to understand more about the history of plants and edibles native to the Puget Sound.

This adventure will explore two National Parks in Utah: Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks. Students will camp in the National Parks campgrounds and spend each day hiking throughout the parks. Students will learn about the desert environment and experience beautiful scenery.

This adventure will explore two National Parks in Utah: Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks. Students will camp in the National Parks campgrounds and spend each day hiking throughout the parks. Students will learn about the desert environment and experience beautiful scenery.

Have you ever noticed some of the sounds around you at home, outside, or in a forest? Birdcalls, car horns, construction sites can sound interesting and almost musical. Sometimes sounds that people find are used  to add an unusual percussive element to a piece of music.

In “Found Sound Club” we will each collect our own found sounds and share them with each other. As we collect our sounds, we can put our favorites together using Garage Band to make a “found sound collage”.

Are you interested in climate justice, sustainability, environmental activism and strategies to decrease environmental impact and mitigate and reverse climate change? Join our student-led project week to explore strategies for sustainability activism and put those strategies to work right here at Overlake. In the first half of the week we’ll learn from activists, corporations, urban farmers, Native Americans, governments, and organizations about what works and what doesn’t.

On this project, we will travel to a nearby location in Western Washington where we will stay for the week and work with Habitat for Humanity and their partner homeowners to build or improve housing. Having a decent, affordable, and safe place to call home is a fundamental aspect of our lives, and one we often take for granted. Habitat for Humanity is committed to eliminating substandard housing and to helping their partner homeowners achieve stability and independence.

Explore of the world of food through hands-on cooking in addition to exploring various area markets.

Students are allowed to apply for an Independent Project Week one time in grades 6-8 and once again in grades 9-12.

Do you ever find yourself wondering how people create cool water bottle stickers? Or wonder what process went into creating an eye-catching advertisement? Intro to Graphic Design will introduce you to the art and structure of graphic design, so you can learn the techniques and apply them to print and screen-based projects. Explore dazzling color palettes, photo effects, and fonts that allow you to create striking tee-shirts, stickers, posters, stationary and more!

This project week consists of day trips exploring outdoor Washington! Each day the group will try a new activity and new location. Trips will include hiking, rock climbing, paddling, and an outdoor low ropes course. We will teach the skills and safety aspects of each activity so no experience is required. Each day will be a chance to explore a new activity but due to changes in weather be prepared to change the schedule around so the activity better fits the weather.

Nowadays, the world is powered by data. Whether you are innovating for the future or working to improve the decision-making process, data lies at the heart of it all. Making sense of data, the job of Data Scientist, is “The top-demanded job of the 21st century”. One of the must-have skills for a data scientist is exploratory data analysis (EDA). It is the process of performing initial investigations on data with the help of summary statistics and graphical representations.

This project week is about building plastic models of just about anything you can think of......cars, boats, planes, spacecraft, animals, buildings, anime characters, or you name it! I love video games and everything it offers, but with all the screen time we experience on a daily basis, is critical to take a break from screens to calm the mind and center the soul. Model building does this and so much more. What does one get out of building plastic models?  

During this Project Week, you will get to retrace some of Boston's renowned literary figures steps and visit the places that inspired them while immersing yourself in their work. 

Live dance! Live music! Live theater! Come spend a week experiencing a variety of performance offerings in Seattle, from jazz and classical music to a backstage theater tour, a play at ACT, a musical at The Village Theater, and "Carmina Burana" with the Seattle Symphony (you know that music - it's in every horror movie!) We will look for insights and connections within each performance opportunity, learning the history, content, and inspiration for each event. We'll also dive into our own exploration of movement with a hip-hop dance workshop in preparation for one of our shows.

"Blow us All Away" as you sing, dance, and rock out with the very latest Broadway has to offer. From the enormously popular Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, or Hadestown to perennial favorites like Wicked, or Les Miserables. Taught by instructors from Village Theatre's Kidstage, students will learn contemporary Broadway songs, singing styles, and choreography while collaborating on a unique musical revue performed for friends and family.

Come ready to move, collaborate with your peers, and take artistic risks. Do not throw away your shot!

"Blow us All Away" as you sing, dance, and rock out with the very latest Broadway has to offer. From the enormously popular Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, or Hadestown to perennial favorites like Wicked, or Les Miserables. Taught by instructors from Village Theatre's Kidstage, students will learn contemporary Broadway songs, singing styles, and choreography while collaborating on a unique musical revue performed for friends and family.

Come ready to move, collaborate with your peers, and take artistic risks. Do not throw away your shot!

Do you like to sing? Scratch that – Do you LOVE to sing?! If you answered yes to both of these questions, then this is the project for you! We will be forming an a cappella ensemble, meaning a singing group that only uses their own voices and no other instrumental accompaniment. We’ll choose a few different songs to work on and get to singing! There will be a lovely performance on the last day of the week.

Pyrography -- Also called Wood Burning. Use a soldering iron pen to burn designs on a piece of wood. You can free draw your design, use stencils, or copy a pattern.  Learn ideas and techniques on how to easily create beautiful art pieces and gifts. Pyrography is a relaxing activity, and when you finish a project you get a sense of accomplishment and rewarding beautiful end results. No experience necessary, we will go over safety tips and ideas as well as step-by-step techniques and provide plenty of resource books and guides to getting you started in pyrography.

This Project Week will explore history, art, community organizations, culture and activism in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer communities in Seattle.  Each day will have a particular focus, exposing students to a wide range of identities, communities, and experiences of LGBTQIA+ Seattleites and their intersecting identities. An effort will be made to visit LGBTQIA+-owned businesses that give back to the community. 

If you are interested in seeing visual art in the wild, enjoy making art, want to try out new, fun art materials, and wish you had more time in the art studios, this is the project week for you! No experience is necessary, but a passion to experiment and experience art is a must!

The Heroic Power Fantasy - the idea of being the superhero, saving the innocent and destroying the evil that preys upon them. While this is the core of the fantasy role-playing aka Dungeons and Dragons experience, Teamwork and Tactics to tackle Dungeons of Dragons will be a full week campaign experience in which we take the power fantasy to the next level - how do you assemble and work with a team of others to take your heroics to the next level? We will look at how teams are assembled both in the game and in media to ensure all bases are covered - do you have your heavy hitter?

This project will be modeled on the Great British Baking Show. The first 4 days of the project will be theme-based, e.g. cakes, cookies, bread, savory goods. Each of these days will start with a technical challenge designed to introduce students to standard baking techniques, then move on to a signature bake focused on the theme for the day. The project will end on day 5 with the group using the skills and techniques acquired to prepare baked goods to be used in a service project targeted to the communities surrounding Overlake.

This project will consist of 4 days of trail running, hiking and camping in the beautiful Sedona area of Arizona. Students will have the opportunity to enjoy the trails and take on leadership roles as we camp together. We will also learn about the local history and peoples of the land we will be on. A different trail will be selected for each day of running and then we will enjoy short hikes. All levels of runners welcome. We will be staying on an official campsite that has basic facilities.

Watch the Skies is a model-UN-style simulation where players take on the role of various nations responding to an alien invasion on planet Earth.  The emphasis is on the interactions between the nations in the midst of the unpredictability of this extraterrestrial presence.  Players will take on a variety of roles balancing their nations’ economies, researching technology to strengthen their abilities, making (and breaking) alliances with other countries, crafting press releases to influence world opinion/events, negotiating at UN assemblies, and if you are (un)fortunate enough, you even ge