The “1619 Project” Project
In the “1619 Project” Project, students explored the impacts of the USA’s history of race-based slavery on the social, financial, and political systems that underpin modern America. Key Academic Skills & Content: Students read and listened to podcasts of selected essays from the New York Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning 1619 Project, published in October 2019 on […]
Stories of Direction
In the Stories of Direction Project, students explored the essential question, “How do journeys transform us?” In order to explore this, students wrote “flash narratives” about community members who had relocated and experienced culture shock. They also read about sea exploration and studied the literary metaphor of the boat. They then built and enhanced scale […]
Ditch The Plastics
In the Ditch the Plastic Project, students study the environmental consequences of single-use plastics and design empathy-led solutions to reduce their fellow students’ dependence on plastic. In the first year that I did this project, students “upcycled” waste materials into items that ranged from teddy bears to skateboards. This year, the plan was for students […]
“The Future Through Our Eyes”: A Literary Journal Project
In The Future Through Our Eyes Cheltenham High School’s 9th grade Project Based Learning students wrote, edited, designed, and published a literary journal. Academic Skills and Content: Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences. Engage and orient the reader by setting out a […]
The Modernized Media Maker Space
In the Modernized Media Maker Space project, four high school teachers set out to redesign an antiquated media arts classrooms into a state-of-the-art industry-standard studio where students can learn professional skills. Academic skills & content: Marketing and communication skills, working within bureaucratic systems, industry-specific needs for professional spaces, networking, effective real-world writing, engineering, architecture, interior […]
The Story of You and Your Crew
In The Story of You and Your Crew students explored how to best build community in small groups through observation, reflection, documentation, and strategic planning. Academic Skills and Content: students learn storytelling techniques through the use of storyboards, script writing and technology integration. Students also developed collaboration skills as well as skills in leadership and […]
¡Tierra y Libertad!
The ¡Tierra y Libertad! project focused on the Mexican Revolution. Students worked in groups ranging from two to five people and were given a menu of project products to choose from. Examples included creating a magazine or newspaper, making a movie with Corrido, building a 3-D map, designing a scrapbook or creating an illustrated timeline. […]
The Math Exhibition Project
In the Math Exhibition Project students were tasked with creating a math museum of visual and/or interactive artifacts. They also had to be able to explain the math behind their exhibit to any visitor at the math exhibition day. The students brainstormed ideas for the exhibit. They voted on their top three favorite ideas. One […]
Bias-Busting Obstacles
In the Bias Busting Obstacles project secondary students learn how human brains and historical context predispose us to be biased against those who are different– and how, through reflection, education, and activism, we can elect to change. Their learning culminates in an exhibition, for which students design, build, and curate a bias-busting obstacle course. The goal […]
Bottle Rocket Launcher
In the Bottle Rocket Launcher project students are tasked with designing and building rocket launchers and bottle rockets that can fly up to 100 feet in the air. Watch the video to the left of this text for more details about the scope and sequence of the project. Academic Skills and Content: This project is […]
City Shark Tank
In the City Shark Tank Project students researched the meaning and effects of gentrification in order to create a business model that would thrive in the areas of San Francisco affected by gentrification. Academic Skills: Research Skills ( ability to search for, locate, extract, organise, evaluate and use or present information that is relevant to […]
Viva La Revolución
The Viva La Revolución project builds off of the work of Erin Brandvold of Envision Impact Academy and the Envision Schools Project Exchange. In the project, student exploration of the effectiveness of revolutions launches with an epic “Nation X” simulation. Following the project launch, students engage in a brief case study of the French Revolution […]
Project ME
In Project Me students drew upon the notion of street art as an unsanctioned form of visual art displayed to make a statement about the community in which an artist lives, exploring their individual identities and experimenting with various media to create original street art. Facilitated by language arts, math, and digital media arts teachers, […]
Triangle Centers Portfolio Project
In the Triangle Centers Portfolio Project students are tasked with solving six mini-projects which are organized into a portfolio and combine algebra, geometry, and literacy skills. Portfolio Items #1-5 take place as semi-real-world scenarios in which students will: Calculate the cheapest location for an airport, Find the center of a circular garden when they only […]
Oceanside Rising
In Oceanside Rising students first identify problems in their community that will then serve as the backdrop for learning the necessary mathematical skills and answering the following essential questions: How might we use mathematics to solve real problems in our communities? How can we inspire students to solve problems and bring change to their community? […]
The Game Board Project
In the Game Board Project students created board games that would help elementary and middle-school students learn about either the physics of electricity, or science or math concepts that are relevant to their grade level. Final Products: a playable board game with instructions, electrical circuit layout, and component list, Key Academic Skills and Content: Understanding […]
Shark Tank: The Four Industrial Revolutions
The Shark Tank project brings together 11th grade English, History, and Math (Integrated Math III) to explore concepts of exponential growth and programming, and analyze how society has responded the four Industrial Revolutions. Throughout the course of this project, teams harnessed the power of industry 4.0 through the use of a “chatbot” integrated into a […]
The American Teenager Project
In the American Teenage project, students interviewed a peer using a question set modeled after the book, It’s Complicated: The American Teenager by Robin Bowman. We hoped to build empathy in the classroom, developing students character and soft skills as they grew academically. Through this project, we aimed to build a strong sense of community in […]
Project Save The Earth: Public Service Announcements (Spanish)
Project Save The Earth is a collaboration between art, math, English, physics, and Spanish, focused around the challenge of saving the planet from environmental catastrophe. The project culminated in a shared exhibition, but each class created its own final products (you can see the project sheet here). This page focuses on Spanish, where students focused […]
Project Save The Earth: Compost (Physics)
Project Save The Earth is a collaboration between art, math, English, physics, and Spanish, focused around the challenge of saving the planet from environmental catastrophe. The project culminated in a shared exhibition, but each class created its own final products (you can see the project sheet here). This page focuses on Art, where students focused […]
Project Save The Earth: Species Posters (Math)
Project Save The Earth is a collaboration between art, math, English, physics, and Spanish, focused around the challenge of saving the planet from environmental catastrophe. The project culminated in a shared exhibition, but each class created its own final products (you can see the project sheet here). This page focuses on math, where students used […]
Project Save The Earth: Earth Impact Podcasts (English)
Project Save The Earth is a collaboration between art, math, English, physics, and Spanish, focused around the challenge of saving the planet from environmental catastrophe. The project culminated in a shared exhibition, but each class created its own final products (you can see the project sheet here). This page focuses on English, where students produced […]
Project Save The Earth: A Call to Action (Art)
Project Save The Earth is a collaboration between art, math, English, physics, and Spanish, focused around the challenge of saving the planet from environmental catastrophe. The project culminated in a shared exhibition, but each class created its own final products (you can see the project sheet here). This page focuses on Art, where students focused […]
Your Year In Reflection
Your Year in Reflection is a 10th grade project that helps us appreciate the power of reflection, though it can be made in any grade level. Students will create a video time capsule of their year after considering the year’s events with a personal, local, national, and global lens. Working in groups, they will choose […]
The DEC-omposition Project
In the DEC-omposition project our students learned music literacy through composition. We used technology we already had onsite to create original music regardless of the students’ music ability. Essential Questions: Is music designed to sell or inspire? How does composing music make you more musically literate? Final Products: Ringtone for self Ringtone for a client […]