This time of year, most students are buckling down to knock out the last paragraphs of term papers or studying for final exams.

Not the students at Maricopa’s A+ Charter School.

Students spent yesterday afternoon showing off the projects they spent weeks — for some, months — working on for the school’s third annual Archer Showcase. And these weren’t science fair projects.

Not even close.

“We’re a project-based learning school, so this showcases what the students have been working on with their teachers throughout the year,” said Dean of Academic Success Nate Wong. “It’s not like one project for the class. Kids get to work on their own different projects.”

A+ students formed garage bands, authored graphic novels and learned the science behind adobe bricks’ thermal inertia.

The graphic novel was a project English teacher Christiana Holguin’s students worked on diligently over the spring semester.

“We read the graphic novel Maus by Art Spiegelman and I knew I had a lot of kids who were really into writing and art,” she said. “So, we went into the history of the comic book industry and I had them make outlines, develop characters, learn about layouts and how to make graphics pop. They did a fantastic job.”

“I got better at my art and [story] structure,” he said. “Eventually, I want to go to an arts college or maybe become an art therapist, so this was helpful practice.”

Wong said he has enjoyed watching his students dive headfirst into projects.

“You never know what kind of topic or output you’re going to see from a student that you never would have seen in a traditional school setting,” he told InMaricopa. “To me, that’s the coolest part because you get to see another side of a student that you wouldn’t see in just a regular math class.”

One example was sophomore Zoie McKee.

Her history project included a yards-long graph outside her classroom tracking how historical events and company decisions affected inflation through the years. She pointed out a baby blue skein of yarn interwoven among other colors to illustrate how and why the Baby Ruth bar’s pricing fluctuated over the years.

This kind of hands-on learning had a positive impact on her learning, she said.

“[Like me,] most people are visual learners and if they have someone conversing with them instead of just reading a textbook, they take in more information,” she said.