High School Research Paper Topics
As a high school student, your schedule may be overwhelming with AP classes, extracurriculars, and other aspects of your life. So, it is difficult for high school students to make space in their schedule for pursuing a particular topic from a subject that has drawn their attention.
Research projects are a great way to actively involve yourself in topics or fields of study that interest you. Research projects provide an avenue for not only pursuing your interests, but also learning something new, challenging yourself, and improving your problem-solving skills.
If you are struggling to think of potential research paper topics and need some inspiration in creating your specific list of research ideas, you’re in the right place! In this blog, we will be sharing research project topics for high schoolers. These research project topics will be organized by overarching areas of study, allowing you to view the distinct categories that may interest you as a curious high schooler. Remember that these research project topics serve as a baseline for you to build on, and draw your own ideas from!
Getting Started with High School Research
If you are a high schooler interested in research, you may be looking for guidance on how to get started. Research can take place in the classroom, but it also can take place outside of school — in an online program, lab, or research setting. At Inspirit AI, we work with students to develop AI research.
AI Scholars is a 10 session (25-hour) program that exposes high school students to fundamental AI concepts and guides them to build a socially impactful project. Taught by our team of graduate students from Stanford, MIT, and more, students receive a personalized learning experience in small groups with a student-teacher ratio of 5:1.
AI + X Mentorship Program is a 1:1 research program that guides students to build their own AI research projects. In collaboration with experienced AI research mentors, students will begin by extracting insights from large datasets, architect key questions, and then engineer machine learning models to answer them. In the process, students will iterate on their project and gain insight into the scientific research process. Upon completion of the course, students will have completed an independent AI project, research proposal, and final research paper/article. Interested students will receive guidance on how they may take their projects further to science fair or journal submission.
Healthcare & Public Health Research Paper Project Topics
Doing any kind of research in healthcare is incredibly important! It helps determine the best treatments and practices for health issues that we face as human beings. Identifying new and improved ways to treat individuals suffering from a condition or disease, your chosen research project(s), in the realms of healthcare, can be truly valuable in saving lives.
Here are some exemplar healthcare-related research project topics that you may use as a source inspiration for your own project:
Effects of household air pollution
Causes for increasing cancer rates
Latest innovations in medical instruments
Causes of anxiety disorders
How do environmental changes affect human health
While healthcare research focuses on aspects pertaining to diagnosing and treating individuals, public health research focuses on promoting and protecting the health of entire populations.
If public health is something down your alley, here are some public health-related research project topics to consider, as well:
Costs of cancer treatments
Patient service: public versus private hospitals
Government solutions to anti-vaccine movements
Benefits of national health care systems
Legal responsibilities of a hospital administration
Technology & Its Uses in Society Research Paper Project Topics
Technology has been integral to various aspects of today’s society. It can be used to connect, to communicate, and to learn about our surrounding world. Hence, technology has left an impression on our lives, transforming the way we think, learn, and communicate.
If you are fascinated in the role of any category of technology in society, let it be energy-based tech like solar panels or electrical-based tech like Artificial Intelligence, consider the following research paper project topics to get you started:
Children’s use of social media technologies
Effect of digital education on learning processes
Reliability of self-driving cars
Evolution of war technology
Morality of genetic engineering
Something really neat about conducting research projects in technology is that it often intertwines with other areas of study! For example, in the mentioned topic “Children’s use of social media technologies” you may notice that researching the effect of social media technologies on children is strongly correlated with neuroscience as the “effect” of social media technologies that is researched pertains directly to changes of children’s behavior and cognitive functions.
Music Research Paper Project Topics
Around the world, music has been a driving force in social change and bringing communities together. It has the unique, yet universal ability to express emotions, convey information, and encourage the right messages in ways that no other medium can.
So, conducting research on the countless genres and styles of music is important, but we should also focus on the impact of human interactions with music! If music itself and the impact of music is something that is you are passionate about and want to broaden your horizons, consider some of these research topics that you can build off of:
The influence of hip-hop culture on adolescents
The application of music as a therapeutic tool
Benefits of music education in high school
Impact of streaming platforms on global music consumption
Effects of wars on societal culture
History Research Paper Project Topics
Learning about the history of our world is key to understanding our past. Learning lessons from the past allows us to realize the evolution and developments of our society as well as our roles as individuals in the big picture. But, more importantly, it serves the purpose of urging us to prevent our mistakes and cultivate better paths for the future.
Research in history can be through a local, regional, national, or global scope. So, the possibilities of research topics are truly endless in this regard. How do you choose a topic in history that simply just makes sense to do research in right now? Well, an easy and quick way to do so is to go onto an online current events database where you can find topics that are penetrating your country as whole, or your city (It is important to choose your historical scope). Once you find these current events that interest you, simply research into past people, events, or any kind of development that has possible correlation to that particular subject.
If you need some examples of research topics, here are some pertaining more directly to U.S. history, on a national level; always remember to determine your historical scope before you proceed with research so that you know the purpose and relevance of your research:
Martin Luther King Junior’s role in the Civil Rights movement
Impact of westward expansion on Native Americans
Changes in roles of women during WW2
Comparing recent economic recessions to that of the Great Depression
Government's responses, overtime, to environmental disasters
In the history essays we write in school, our teachers often encourage us to answer the “so what” question at the conclusion of our essay, but why? Through any historical scope you choose, conducting research in history allows you to understand its relevance and importance, while providing a deeper, more lasting understanding of what happened, in order to answer the “so what”.
Starting your Research Project
As mentioned at the beginning of this blog post, “brain-dumping” a list of specific research questions that interest you will allow you to narrow down your thoughts and get started right away! Hopefully, this blog post provides baseline research project ideas in health care, public health, technology, music, and history that you can build upon.
We wish you the best of luck in pursuing your high school research project, and remember to do what ignites your interests!
About Inspirit AI
AI Scholars Live Online is a 10 session (25-hour) program that exposes high school students to fundamental AI concepts and guides them to build a socially impactful project. Taught by our team of graduate students from Stanford, MIT, and more, students receive a personalized learning experience in small groups with a student-teacher ratio of 5:1.
