text: The only downside to student designed projects is the way of grading and assessing their work. The more freedom students are given within a project, the further projects are going to be from what a rubric wants, which can be a pain for teachers. If you tell students to come up with an experiment and make a presentation on a tri-fold board, you could have one kid coming in with a project about wildlife and one with a project about aerodynamics for a chemistry class, two experiments no where near being on topic. There is a limit to the freedom teachers should give students, but there should be extensive freedom to the students within guidelines.