Final+Proposal

Title: Academic and Social benefits of Team Sports Name: Tara DeMarco
 * Background - ** I went down this research path because team sports have affected my social and academic development in a positive way. I have become more confident with who I am. Team sports also affect other peoples, especially woman, self confidence.

My driving question is, How can being apart of a sports team help create self confidence?

While focusing on the driving question, I had to answer many questions before I could answer it. My questions were, does the type of sport affect the self-confidence and self image? How does age affect the benefits of team sports? Do women or men gain more self-confidence and better grade due to their involvement in sports? Those were the main questions I asked before I could answer my driving question, and they were what lead my research to focus mainly on social and academic benefits of team sports. ** Vision – ** This project will help water polo players come out with more confidence when it is done. The whole point is showing how team sports help build confidence and academics. This project is helping me perform better while playing goalie in water polo. It is helping me realize confidence is something needed and if you have it while playing you can play amazingly. This is also going to help other people so they can learn the basics and come out with the same confidence and friendships that I gained through water polo. This will address the driving question by showing how learning the basic skill and being apart of team sports can help people gain confidence. ** Products – ** To show I have met my goals, I am going to write the paper on confidence and explain how the clinic has helped many people with their confidence. The paper will show example of how team sports can benefit students both academically and socially. The portfolio will show that I did not procrastinate, and how everything I did helped me achieve my goals. The clinic is going to help me achieve my goals of teaching the basics of water polo and helping people enjoy playing water. The products I have that will show I have completed my goals are my paper, my presentation, my project and my portfolio. ** Task Analysis – ** For this topic I am going to have to research team psychology. I will have to discover how and why being apart of a team can help increase self confidence and ones self image. I am also going to research about coaching and self esteem in teenagers. Learning about coaching will help with the clinic and being able to help who comes to learn. If I learn about the self esteem in teenagers I can discover if people who do not play sports have a lower self esteem or not. This topic is very interesting to me and I want to show people that being apart of a team or any kind of close knit friends can help increase self-confidence. I want to start off my project by getting the pool for a few hours. After I have the pool I will create flyers and post them around school to create awareness of the clinic. After people come my team mates and I will help the student learn the basics of water polo and begin to feel comfortable. This project will involve a lot of time and preparation, but it will be fun and worth it. I am going to have my paper and my project done by mid-November. And I am going to work on my PowerPoint using my time wisely. I will have the power point done in earlier than I present which is on January 15. ** Mentor **** and Topic Expert – ** My mentor is my mom, Donna DeMarco. She will be able to assist me by helping me through challenges that come up. She will be my rock and someone I can depend on if things start to go wrong. She can help me with research if I hit a wall, and help if certain things with the clinic go wrong. She will also help me with my paper and make sure I do not procrastinate. I talk to my mom very often about my topic, and I plan to keep her involved by showing her how it is affecting my personal skills in water polo and that it is something I am truly interested in. ** Conclusion – ** The project is very personal to me. I have gain so much confidence for being apart of the water polo and swim team. I have done well academically also. I wanted to do my project on something that has actually affected my life, and gaining confidence due to team sports is something that changed my whole high school career. Skills need to complete this project are a basic knowledge of water polo, time management skills, good paper writing abilities and making a fun and creative PowerPoint. My weakness for the project that has to be addressed is my time management. I need to make sure I spend enough time on everything so my project can be the best it can be. My strength for this project is willing to teach people the basics and feel the same confidence I gained through team sports. Since it actually affected me, I want to share the feeling and I will be extremely interested when making my presentation. I have a lot of motivation to help younger students become involved in team sports because of how it personally changed my life.
 * Goals –  **
 * Help people gain confidence in sports by having a good friend network and confidence in basic skills.
 * I want to show how majority of people who play team sports do better academically than people who do not.
 * Manage my time properly and not procrastinate.
 * I want to teach people the basics of water polo with the clinic.
 * Hopefully help more people enjoy playing water polo and feel confident with their abilities.