World War 2 Project Ideas For High School Students
by
Indigo Research Team
Published:
May 14, 2025
Last Updated:
May 20, 2025
Did you know that 39 percent of U.S. servicemen and all servicewomen were volunteers? World War 2 is filled with many unexpected stories that can make history classes more engaging. If you need some inspiration for your next history project, you'll find this World War 2 project ideas list worthwhile.
There are so many ideas to try that would be suitable for different learning styles, from multimedia presentations and reenactments to personal interviews and hands-on crafts. These projects will help improve your understanding of history and enhance your research skills. Without further ado, let's dive in.
Ready to create and experience history firsthand? Here are a few WW2 project ideas to consider:
These projects are great for essays, presentations, or class discussions:
Explore the psychological profiles of the two most influential and contentious leaders of World War 2: Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler. This project requires you to examine both leaders by studying their leadership styles, decision-making methods, and rhetorical techniques used to gain national influence.
Analyze their major speeches, decision-making policies, and defining moments during their time in power. How did they rally their people? How important were ideology, personality, and communication methods in their leadership approaches? This project encourages you to look beyond good vs. evil and understand how leadership works under extreme circumstances.
Discover the largely forgotten narratives of soldiers from colonized regions who participated in World War 2. Your investigation will focus on the military contributions of soldiers from British India, French West Africa, the Caribbean, and other colonized regions. What motivated them to fight? What kind of treatment did these colonial soldiers receive in comparison to their European counterparts? And what happened when the war ended?
Use articles, letters, interviews, and photos to construct a story that disputes the typical Eurocentric perspective of the war. You can present your final project in the form of an essay, a slideshow presentation, or a mock interview. Through this project, you will learn to see WWII as a worldwide conflict and understand how overseas battles for freedom led to independence movements in colonized countries.
This table below shows essential data about US military personnel throughout World War II. You can use this information to develop high school projects focused on military force expansion throughout World War II or to study the human cost of war and the roles different military branches played during that period.
These are great choices for students who enjoy writing, art, or drama:
A graphic short story is one of the best World War 2 project ideas for high school students who love visual storytelling. Here you will investigate an actual historical event or character and create a narrative using artwork with dialogue and panels. Your characters should accurately portray the language, clothing, and attitudes of their historical period.
Your World War 2 comic may portray a soldier fighting in battle or a nurse working in a field hospital. You may also include the story of a child living through air raids. This assignment tasks you to express intricate historical narratives through visual and emotional interpretation. You may use traditional drawing methods or digital software. Design 6–10 panels featuring captions and dialogue.
Explore the emotional tapestry of World War 2 through poetry. Your task is to compose 3–5 original poems that provide different perspectives or moments from World War 2. You can adopt the perspective of a soldier writing to his family or embody the voice of a Jewish teenager hiding from danger. Another idea is to portray a parent living through the terror of air raids.
Choose various poetic structures such as free verse, haiku, and rhymed stanzas to convey distinct emotional tones and experiences. The goal is to reveal the human emotions of history through feelings of fear, loss, hope, and bravery. Base your poems on historical wartime experiences and provide a brief contextual explanation for each one.
Here you’ll use digital tools and media to retell WWII stories. These ideas are perfect for collaboration and storytelling:
Creating a short documentary is one of the most challenging, but rewarding World War 2 history project ideas. It involves taking on the responsibilities of a filmmaker covering a particular World War 2 topic. Your documentary can focus on a historical battle or a wartime leader. Other ideas are resistance movements and social topics such as women's wartime roles or wartime propaganda.
Tell your story by combining public domain footage and photos with narration and background music. You can either record your narration or add quotes and audio clips to enhance viewer engagement. The final video should be 3–6 minutes long and follow a clear structure: introduction, main points, and conclusion.
Design an interactive timeline or map to show all major World War 2 events including battles and political changes. With tools like Google Slides, Canva, or Padlet, you can create interactive points that display pop-up content. Your study may include major battles from European fronts and the Pacific theater or global contributions from various nations.
When selecting a map to use, display how geographic boundaries evolved through time or mark the locations of key World War 2 activities. Your work here goes beyond providing facts. It’s about creating an interactive digital experience for educational purposes.
These projects are best for kinesthetic learners or project-based learning environments:
An escape room is one of the most exciting WW2 project ideas for high school students. Create an immersive experience where participants decipher puzzles inspired by authentic wartime codes and missions. You can develop clues through various methods such as the Caesar cipher, or Morse code, or some historical information about secret service teams like the Enigma project.
Every clue must connect with a real World War II event or historical person. It may involve interpreting a coded message to stop an imaginary air raid. But where can you set up this escape room? Your home is a good start. Your classroom could work too, just make sure you are permitted to use it. Another idea is to distribute it as a printable game kit.
If you're good with sculpture, one or the best WW2 history project ideas to try is building a diorama or 3D model. You can recreate a D-Day beach landing, battlefield trench, or concentration camp entrance, to represent a specific moment from WWII. Your choice of material is just as versatile. You can either build your model using cardboard, clay, or objects from recycled materials.
Pay close attention to historical accuracy. To maintain historical accuracy, all components including uniforms, tools, vehicles and terrain must reflect their respective era. Small labels or brief explanations can help viewers navigate through the scene.
For a visual understanding of the project ideas described above, you can watch the video below, in which high school students present their projects. These projects are focused on the topic of World War II. Perhaps you will get some more ideas for your own project. For some people, seeing other examples in real life is better than thousands of words.
World War 2 represented much more than military conflicts. It was a global turning point driven by courage, resilience, great tragedy, and endurance. These WW2 project ideas let you step into history instead of merely learning about it. Exploring major topics like this through creative projects builds NOT just knowledge, but also vision; a quality that admission officer is looking for in your college application.
If world war projects help you think more deeply and express yourself more boldly, imagine what you could do with expert mentorship and support. The Indigo Research program presents an opportunity to advance your ideas by forming an original research project or literature review under guidance from world-class mentors.
If world war projects help you think more deeply and express yourself more boldly, imagine what you could do with expert mentorship and support. The Indigo Research program presents an opportunity to advance your ideas by forming an original research project or literature review under guidance from world-class mentors.
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