Authentic Project-Based Learning in a Wichita TRC

This week I would like to share a project that one of my TRC teachers did with her fifth grade students over several weeks in October. Mrs. Carter is in her first year of this grant and while her students were reading about helping animals in their Treasures book they asked how they might be able to help animals in their community. Mrs. Carter opened it up for discussion and an authentic project-based unit was born! She then had the students brainstorm ways that they could help animals within their table groups, share out their ideas to the class and then began working on how they were going to implement their plans.

One of the groups decided they wanted to help the Kansas Humane Society by having a school-wide adopt-a-pet day. Another group wanted to help sharks after seeing a show on the Discovery Channel about them. Another group thought they could help by creating a PowerPoint sharing tips on how to properly care for pets, while the last group wanted to help abused animals and were led to contact the ASPCA organization to see what they could do to help with that situation.

The students then set off to work on how they were going to get the information they researched out to others. The students decided to share their information in a variety of ways. Some students made posters to display around the building (the humane society group), others asked teachers if they could present the PowerPoint to classrooms and one group even presented at a whole school assembly to get the word out.

If you would like to replicate this project in your classroom see the Wichita TRC grant resources page.

~Jenny Gridley, TRC Facilitator and Technology Integration Specialist with Wichita USD

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