Innocence Project
In this 11th grade Humanities project, students partnered with the California Innocence Project - a legal organization dedicated to freeing wrongfully convicted prisoners. The CIP gave students legal documents and handwritten letters from prisoners. Students analyzed these documents to determine whether the prisoner had a factual innocence claim that the CIP should pursue. Students presented their findings by writing interoffice memos for CIP lawyers and by giving oral presentations to them at California Western School of Law. In addition, students conducted research on historical and contemporary problems in the criminal justice system and presented their findings in a self-published book. The book included summaries of various issues, proposed solutions, and contained short-fiction pieces based on real-life cases.ealth is the ability of an individual and community to adapt to physical, environmental, and social changes.