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The Hometown Heritage Project

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Hometown Heritage is a high school level, school-wide, cross-curricular PBL project originally designed and conducted at Tri-County Early College High School in the spring of 2018. The project's primary goal is to allow students to develop, refine, and present a product that addresses the following driving question: "How can we inspire young people to value our local heritage by telling our community’s stories in creative and meaningful ways?" Modeled after the "Foxfire" series, this project asked students to become apprentice level experts on a topic they cared about that was specific to the fabric of our local community, including working directly with an outside mentor to develop this expertise. Moreover, the students were expected to make strong connections and applications to their academic and 21st Century Skill competencies.

Material Type: Teaching/Learning Strategy

Author: Ben Owens

Gingerbread Market

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The Gingerbread Market is Project-Based Learning for Social Studies Economics. Students learn what it means to be a consumer and a producer by supplying goods and services for a donation. All earnings are donated to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and the American Cancer Society.

Material Type: Unit of Study

Authors: Kara Lillie, Tammy Todd

The Racing Project

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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.

Material Type: Reference Material

Author: Ben Owens

Grade 4: Surprise Birthday Cake! - A Problem on Measurement

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In “Surprise Birthday Cake!”, students will be planning to bake a birthday cake for their mom for her birthday. They will learn about converting between ounces and pounds when reading a recipe for making a birthday cake. They will create a table that show ounces versus pounds. They will also determine how many of each items they will need to buy to make a cake that will feed the number of people that have been invited. They will also determine how big the cake needs to be to feed the number of people invited using inches and feet.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: LINDY KIRKMAN

Grade 3: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle...Oh My! - A Problem on Place Value and Rounding

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You have been asked, by the Service Club at your school, to pass out flyers on recycling in your county. Because your county is big, it will take you a while to reach every house. To make your flyers, you need lots of paper. Each ream of paper has 500 sheets in it. You will need to determine how many reams you will need to make your flyers. You will also submit a flyer to passed out to the county. ***NOTE When this PBL was originally created NC had not yet adopted it's new standards. This can be adapted to the new standards, if needed.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: LINDY KIRKMAN

Grade 3: Salad Bar - A Problem of Fluency with Addition and Subtraction

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The Cafeteria Manager at your school has decided to offer a Salad Bar. The Salad Bar will be open for all students and staff at the school. You love all sorts of yummy things on your salad. You get a bowl that holds 568 pieces in it. You want to put as much as you can on your salad without going over the 568 pieces. However, the toppings come in sets and you have to use the whole set. The Cafeteria Manage is allowing you to try out the Salad Bar before it is open to all students. After you determine what toppings you can put on your salad, the Cafeteria Manager wants to hear from you. What are the pros and cons of the Salad Bar? Be sure to offer any suggestions. You feedback is greatly appreciated.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: LINDY KIRKMAN

Playground Palooza - A Project Using Volume, Lines, Rounding Decimals, Measurement

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Purpose: Engages students and introduces elements needed for building a playground. In “Playground Palooza”, students will take the role of a playground designer responding to a request for a new playground at the school. Students will learn about numerical patterns, reading and writing decimals, rounding decimals, adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing decimals, converting measurements, volume, measuring volume, relating volume, coordinate planes, and attributes of 2D figures. Students will determine the total area of the new playground, determine the total area for each structure you want included on your playground, determine the volume of sand needed for the sandbox, use at least three playground structures, create a table of equipment and materials including company name, cost, quantity, and totals, create a coordinate system to display the center point for each structures or area on the playground, and submit a blueprint of their playground design. ***NOTE This PBL was created before NC adopted the NC standards for Math. Therefore this PBL also addresses: rounding decimals.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: LINDY KIRKMAN

Inquiry based ecosystem research

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Attached is a 5 E lesson plan to use over 8-10 class periods. Students will research the interactions of plants and animals in different ecosystems. Graphic organizer to guide students research is also attached. After students complete research they will form ecosystem based groups to learn more about current threats and conservation efforts needed to preserve the ecosystem. They will create a "Spread the Word" media project to share publicly school wide. You can also do some sort of conservation service learning activity to help students take their knowledge into the community. For instance, we do Adopt-a-Stream through our city. We clean and test the water in the stream across form our school twice a year.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: KATHLEEN WOODARD

Grade 4: Let's Go Fishing - A Problem on Fractions and Line Plots

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Scenario You and a friend enter a fishing contest. You have been asked to collect worms before you can move to the next round in the fishing contest. You have heard that the longest worms are good to use for bait. According to the contest rules for the first stage, the person with the longest worm, in each pairing, will get to start fishing an hour earlier in the next round of the contest. You and your friend go home and think about the best place to find your worms. You found the best spot. After collecting your worms, you meet up with your friend to determine the length of each worm to the nearest 1/4 inch. Which one of you has the longest worm? Use a line plot to record your data. Remember: The person with the longest worm will get to continue to the next round.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: LINDY KIRKMAN

Grade 1: The Three Little Piglets - A Problem of Place Value

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Scenario The Three Little Piglets need to buy materials to make their houses. They go to the local Home Improvement store to purchase their materials. As an employee of the local Home Improvement store, the Three Little Piglets ask you where the materials are that they can purchase to build a house. You show them the materials and they see that they can only purchase straw, sticks, and bricks. Pig One buys a wheelbarrow full of straw. Pig Two buys a wheelbarrow full of sticks. Pig Three buys a wheelbarrow full of bricks. At the store, the store manager tells the pigs that it will be a lot easier to carry their materials home if they put them into groups and secure them tightly. You will determine how many pieces of straw, sticks and bricks each pig purchased. You will determine how each pig bundles their materials and how much is in each bundle. You will write a letter to the store manager about how your way of bundling each pig's materials is efficient.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: LINDY KIRKMAN

Grade 5: Lemonade Stand Fundraiser - A Project on Decimals, Area, and Fractions

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Purpose: Engages students and introduces the element of a lemonade stand needed for building a lemonade stand and creating a business. Case Overview In “Lemonade Stand Fundraiser”, students will take the role of lemonade stand designer and business owner responding to a request to raise money for an overnight field trip. They will learn about adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing decimals, adding and subtracting fractions, and finding the area of a rectangle with fractional lengths as they create their lemonade stand, advertise and start their fundraising business. ***NOTE This PBL was created before NC adopted it's NC standards. NF.2 and NF.6 are no longer Grade 5 standards but incorporated into other NF standards.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: LINDY KIRKMAN

Primary Sources and Personal Artifacts - Library of Congress

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This lesson plan introduces the practice of using primary sources; where to find primary sources, what they are, how to examine them, and how to construct a context to tell more of the story.Students will:Analyze personal artifacts as primary sources; Analyze historical primary sources; andConnect historical text with primary sources.Materials/Links Included:Primary Source Analysis ToolPrimary source setsTeacher's guide to Analyzing Primary Sources

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Author: Dawn Perez