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I was curious if anyone has had students participate in a Genius Hour Project?  If so, how did you share students' projects?

One of my students has decided to model what knee surgery might look like by asking various farms and butcher shops in the area for a sample knee joint from one of their animals.  She will then demonstrate to the class what the surgery might look like.  She is very excited to share this with the class.

Another student is trying to make healthier versions of desserts.  She has brought in cookies made with avacado instead of butter.  They were really moist.  Flavor a bit off but still tasted good.  She is bringing in another version this week.  Excited to try it.

I am trying to get genius hour up and running. The obstacles that I'm running into are that I only have 40 minutes on Fridays, and I'm finding that 2-3 Fridays each month are taken up with surprise assemblies. How much research did your kiddos do before launching into their own project? It looks like quite a bit of your students' work is out of class if they are visiting butcher shops and baking. I teach in a very low-income community where education isn't highly valued. Homework is done by perhaps 10% of students when it is assigned. Have you found that the work at home goes up simply because they got to choose their own topics?