What is PBL?
In Project Based Learning (PBL), students go through an extended process of inquiry in response to a complex question, problem, or challenge. While allowing for some degree of student "voice and choice," rigorous projects are carefully planned, managed, and assessed to help students learn key academic content, practice 21st Century Skills (such as collaboration, communication & critical thinking), and create high-quality, authentic products & presentations. For more info check out the Buck Institute for Education. The three main whole class PBL projects this year will allow for both social studies skills and science skills. The remaining PBL projects are individualized and up to student passions.
Food Literacy:
In the beginning of the year students will partake in the discovery of Food Literacy. This unit will incorporate food chemistry, food knowledge (rules, nutrition, marketing, etc.) and food justice.
The chemistry portion will include the SPS science kit. Students will learn how to test for starch, protein, glucose, and fats in a variety of foods. Students will build scientific thinking and writing skills.
The food knowledge portion will incorporate Omnivore's Dilema by Michael Pollan (young reader version) and Food Rules: An Eater's Manual by Michael Pollan and Maira Kalman. The intention to for students to become aware of how the food industry works and allow students to make conclusions about their own eating.
The food justice portions is where the students will figure out how to contribute to a fair food system. Students will create projects based on their food passion.
Early NW Coast People:
Students will immerse themselves in an engaging story which includes real places and events. They will experience challenges and victories. Students gain a personal connection to historical events and typical community and business structures. To demonstrate their learning as they proceed through the unit, students consider settings and characters and then role play and make critical decisions concerning the events of the story.
World Peace Game:
The information below is taken directly from the World Peace Game website. It is a complicated "game" and I couldn't have explained it better!
The World Peace Game is a hands-on political simulation that gives players the opportunity to explore the connectedness of the global community through the lens of the economic, social, and environmental crises and the imminent threat of war. The goal of the game is to extricate each country from dangerous circumstances and achieve global prosperity with the least amount of military intervention. As “nation teams,” students will gain greater understanding of the critical impact of information and how it is used.
As their teams venture further into this interactive social setting laced with highly charged philosophical issues, the skills needed to identify ambiguity and bias in the information they receive will be enhanced and more specifically they will rapidly perceive that reactive behavior not only provokes antagonism, it can leave them alone and isolated in the face of powerful enemies. Beliefs and values will evolve or completely unravel as they begin to experience the positive impact and windows of opportunity that emerge through effective collaboration and refined communication.
In essence, as meaning is constructed out of chaos and new creative solutions are proposed, World Peace Game players will learn to live and work comfortably at the frontiers of the unknown.
The information below is taken directly from the World Peace Game website. It is a complicated "game" and I couldn't have explained it better!
The World Peace Game is a hands-on political simulation that gives players the opportunity to explore the connectedness of the global community through the lens of the economic, social, and environmental crises and the imminent threat of war. The goal of the game is to extricate each country from dangerous circumstances and achieve global prosperity with the least amount of military intervention. As “nation teams,” students will gain greater understanding of the critical impact of information and how it is used.
As their teams venture further into this interactive social setting laced with highly charged philosophical issues, the skills needed to identify ambiguity and bias in the information they receive will be enhanced and more specifically they will rapidly perceive that reactive behavior not only provokes antagonism, it can leave them alone and isolated in the face of powerful enemies. Beliefs and values will evolve or completely unravel as they begin to experience the positive impact and windows of opportunity that emerge through effective collaboration and refined communication.
In essence, as meaning is constructed out of chaos and new creative solutions are proposed, World Peace Game players will learn to live and work comfortably at the frontiers of the unknown.