At Portals, we always aim to provide students with more than just lessons. Our goal is to inspire a love of learning and a drive to create—whether that’s through research, projects, or authentic real-world connections. One such success story is Logan, a young student who’s making waves with his own publication, The Birdy Gazette.
Logan has been participating in the Gazette writing project this year, where each student, or family, creates a monthly magazine publication. The idea is to learn writing, grammar, timeliness, and to write for a real audience within an area of passion and interest. Logan loves tanks and he loves birds. So naturally, his magazine would be all about these two topics!
Logan wrote an article about military tanks. While many young students are still discovering their interests, Logan dove deep into a fascinating topic that combines history, technology, and engineering. He posted his first edition in the shared Portals folder and sent it out to family and friends. Little did he know, his passion would spark the interest of someone else—someone who has dedicated their life to building and sharing models of military tanks.
Enter Ian, owner of Charlie's Plastic Models. Ian’s wife, Kari, works for Portals, and when she saw Logan’s article on tanks, she couldn’t help but to show Ian. The response? Pure excitement! Ian wrote Logan a letter expressing his appreciation for the article, and as a token of his encouragement, he offered Logan a tank model kit to help him dive deeper into the world of scale modeling.
“My name is Ian and I own Charlie’s Plastic Models. I saw and read your Birdy Gazette article about tanks because my wife Kari works for Portals and showed me. I got super excited to see someone so young interested in similar things as I was when I was your age. I ended up joining the Marines right out of high school because of it.”
Having an audience is motivation for writing. We write for an audience. We communicate with people. By sharing his writing, Logan was able to inspire a connection with another enthusiast.
“I build, paint, and weather scale models myself, since I was about 14 or 15. That’s how I ended up owning my own business selling them. When I build some of them, depending on where I want them to look like they are at, I paint them in different camouflage patterns or use different techniques like they did in real life to make them look like they operate in the snow.”
Seeing a budding hobbyist, Ian also wanted to encourage Logan to keep learning and building his knowledge base! He asked permission to send Logan a gift and the letter:
“I was so excited by your article I wanted to send you a tank model kit with everything you need to build it in the event you’ve not been introduced to the scale modeling world yet.”
The beauty of this story lies not just in the encouragement Logan received, but in the real-world connection that came from his writing. This is exactly what project-based learning is all about: creating opportunities for students to connect with experts, foster real interests, and see their hard work acknowledged and valued by others. Logan wasn’t just writing for an assignment—he was creating content that people outside of his immediate school community wanted to engage with.
This story also highlights how giving young students an audience beyond their classroom can be incredibly motivating. When students like Logan realize that their work has the potential to impact others, it fuels their desire to create and achieve even more. It wasn’t just praise for a job well done; it was an invitation to explore a new hobby and grow further in a field that Logan already showed interest in.
Logan’s passion for military tanks was turned into an article that not only impressed a professional model maker but also earned him a personal gift that can further develop his hobby. And for a young person, that recognition is powerful. Ian’s offer to send Logan a tank model kit was the ultimate encouragement - and soooo much better than a letter grade!
At Portals, we are incredibly proud of Logan’s work among many other learners embracing authentic project-based learning. It’s a reminder that when we give children the space to explore their passions and the resources to develop them, amazing things can happen. Logan’s story is just one example of how project-based learning can ignite curiosity, foster connections, and open doors to new opportunities.
We can’t wait to see where Logan’s journey goes from here—and we’re excited to share even more stories of students using Portals lessons to create, inspire, and make a difference in the world around them.
Thank you for following Logan’s story. We hope it inspires other students to dive into projects with the same enthusiasm and dedication. If you'd like to explore more about our project-based learning tools at Portals, visit PortalsEDU.com.
Dr. Seann Dikkers
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