Students help our school's PTA decorate for the upcoming Harvest Festival. The student's responsibility is to design and create a decoration that will enhance the theme of the Harvest Festival. Students learn about 2-D and 3-D shapes in the classroom. Then they use their knowledge to create a decoration of their own to share with the community.

Second grade students will explore their school site in order to understand the basic needs of the animals on our campus. Through that exploration they will learn challenges animals may face raising their young without proper resources and a safe environment. They will work collaboratively in groups to come up with a plan to improve our school site, asking school leaders and members of our community for help. After engaging with others to join in, students will use those resources (possibly funds) to help make our school site more animal friendly.

Students are presented with an opportunity to investigate one of North Carolina's great mysteries, the Lost Colony of Roanoke. They are tasked with an application process to research various theories. Throughout the study/unit, students gain an understanding of a key event in their state's history. They are able to share and teach others about this mysterious event. They develop the understanding of looking for key details and clues to make connections with various theories, relating to the work of a CSI detective/forensic scientist.

This is a PBL for first grade social studies about the importance of rules in the classroom, school, and community. This PBL will require students to create a set of classroom rules for the class to follow using either a video or poster.

This is a PBL for first grade social studies about the importance of rules in the classroom, school, and community. This PBL will require students to create a set of classroom rules for the class to follow using either a video or poster.

Students collect data within their school about current social issues and create graphs to display and analyze the data. Students simultaneously read and write fables based on the prevalent social issues. Students then make 2D illustrations for their fables and practice reading their stories aloud with fluency. The culminating event is a Meet the Author showcase for parents to hear the stories and get autographs from the new authors.

Students will explore the concept of genetic disease through the lenses of inheritance, natural selection, and genetic modification and gene therapy. Students will develop an understanding of connections between these concepts and be able to explain these connections. Finally, students will create a "Ted Talk" style video that other students will watch to learn about a specific genetic disease.

Rationale - Many students today come to school not knowing how to handle their emotions and conflicts. Through this project, students will gain knowledge and the tools they need throughout the school year.

Overview - Students explored different emotions through stories, videos, and experiences. They learned about rules and their importance for safety. Students learned about calming techniques such as: breathing, going to a safe place, and expressing emotions appropriately. Students designed and implemented a safe place in the classroom by making posters, sensory bottles, stress balls, and breathing pinwheels.

A PBL project that allows high school physics and math students exercise voice & choice in the design of a new maker space.

In this project-based learning assessment, students create music playlists to go along with the novella The Pearl by John Steinbeck. Students choose six songs that align with various aspects of the book, and create a poster with images that go along with each song.

Fourth grade students learn about the importance of living a healthy lifestyle through a variety of experiences. The goal of this unit is for students to apply what they learn in class to help transform their life to a healthier lifestyle. To begin this unit, students watch a clip from the movie WALL-E to get their attention about the importance of eating healthy and exercising. What would life be like if we all lived a WALL-E way of life?

Students then dive into their learning by completing a nutrition pathway. Students independently learn about the different food groups, why vitamins and minerals are important, and the importance of exercise. Students then apply what they learned to interview our school’s Cafeteria Attendants. Through this process, they learn the “ins and outs” of what goes into planning lunch for our 1,100 student body.

To close out the unit, the students work in small groups to plan a nutritious class party. Each group creates a “company” and presents their plan to the class at the close of the unit. Students must include the five important food groups while staying within a $60.00 budget. Once each company presents their party plan, students vote on which company to “hire” to throw our class party. Students then close out the year with a more nutritious party while still having fun.

Students work collaboratively to transform their experiences and understanding of plastic pollution into a product that encourages other community members to reduce their single plastic usage. Students work together to research the effects of single-use plastic on plants, animals, and the environment. Reading skills are strengthened by reading numerous nonfiction articles and websites about the effects of plastic; students then use these sources to write opinion pieces about plastic use. Students interview staff members, participate in Zero Waste Week, and create a sculpture from discarded materials.

This set of slides is intended to provide you with a brief overview of the key elements of high-quality Project Based Learning. It includes links to other PBL resources and examples. This set of slides is best reviewed with a group of educators ready to learn more about PBL so they can make the learning more engaging and relevant for students. Enjoy!

The aim of this unit is that upon completion, teachers will be able to manage the learners' project-based (PBL) activities in a technology-enhanced environment to support collaboration.

Project-based learning in a technology rich environment can be effective in K-12 classrooms

allowing students to negotiate understanding and construct knowledge in social situations.

Benefits include connecting students in communities in and outside of their cultures, and meeting

learning goals in non-institutional fashion, while educators share practices and resources using

technology tools. When projects endure over time, characteristics of communities of practice

begin to emerge in which shared content grows and is amended by participants, generating

historical artifacts. Once instantiated, the project philosophy provides an ongoing basis for

immersive learning, using wikis, blogs, and other social networking applications. A projectbased

classroom philosophy sets an engaging, attractive environment for students by meeting

their needs to be socially involved, as opposed to being passive receivers. An example long term

Internet learning event called the Monster Project is examined in this paper. Widespread use of

project-based learning has been curtailed by a strong focus on traditional instruction to meet

testing goals. Research shows that active participation in project-based education results in

students being more intrinsically motivated, more likely to show conceptual understanding, and

more well adjusted than students in traditional education modes. These characteristics are those

of a community of practice, where members are informally connected by their accomplishments

and by what they learn together. The range of academic content that can be integrated into

project-based learning as the main approach in a classroom is bounded only by a teacher’s

energy and creativity.

The Racing Project is high school level, school-wide, cross-curricular PBL project done at Tri-County Early College HS and was centered around the question: How can we innovate vehicle design solutions to win a race? With that question in mind, there were four different buckets containing different ideas for car designs: gravity games, combustion, electric, and human powered vehicles. Within each of these buckets the PBL groups (with help from an outside mentor) were to design a car to win a race to the best of their abilities using the power source bucket they were in.

In this project-based learning activity, students complete a webquest activity introducing them to The Crucible and the Salem Witch Trials. Students complete a poster presentation on the Salem Witch Trials, comparing it to the Communist Scare of the 1950s.

A middle school teacher uses class projects to introduce students to the principles of insulation.

This project-based learning unit is a great opportunity to bring relevance to the students while learning about severe weather prediction and prevention, maps, graphs, coordinate planes, and informational reading. Students will plan and execute an emergency plan and kit to be used in case of severe weather in their community with their own families.