text: Maggie Lyons    A student presents their self-designed science project: it is a box of dry ice and a research paper on the properties of the peculiar substance. The project has a valid topic, but it is almost irrelevant to the curriculum of the class. A month later, the student realizes that the summer project should have been some sort of a review of the graphing unit last year---which they had forgotten completely. A summer project is meant to preserve the necessary knowledge from the year before and to prepare the student for the upcoming year. If the project's design includes and practices irrelevant information, then its purpose is completely undermined. In order to avoid this, a summer project should be designed by teachers instead of students because they know the curriculum well, will take it seriously, and can use it as an opportunity to set the expectations for the upcoming school year.