Pedagogy and Teaching Strategies for this Unit.
Project Based Learning
Project Based Learning is gaining in popularity across the United States as a means to engage students in critical thinking using multi disciplinary projects, and climate change is definitely a multi-disciplinary problem. One of the key mandates of the Common Core initiative is to have students think more deeply about a problem and do less rote memorization and fact based learning. Engineers Wanted! Climate Change Experience Required is a project that seeks to marry the process skills needed to collaborate, design and model a small-scale solution to climate change while also developing collaboration skills, communication, reading, writing and deep thinking to solve a problem. For this unit, I am using guidance from the Buck Institute for Education’s publication, PBL for 21st Century Success: Teaching Critical Thinking, Collaboration, Communication, and Creativity from the Project Based Learning Toolkit Series. The book maps out a series of steps to engage groups of students in these types of projects.
Projects are based on a central question that elicits complex and varied answers and solutions. Some examples in the book include: How should the Supreme Court rule on the case of _______? What is the best way to keep pollutants from our school parking lot out of the creek at our neighborhood park? How can we design emergency housing for disaster victims so that it is inexpensive, easy to transport, and quick to install?33 You can see that these are questions with no easy one-statement answers. To attempt to answer these requires collaboration, research, and thinking about the effect of each decision. Teachers generally choose the central question. The key question for this unit will be: How can we retrofit our school to mitigate and adapt to climate change? It was important to me to steer clear of designing a building from the ground up. I wanted students to look at existing choices and structures to see what is possible to change and what will not be possible to change. It makes the struggle to adapt more constrained, but perhaps more realistic. We are going to have to work with the houses and schools we have in the future unable to always get new. I chose the school as a neutral locale that all students have a familiarity with, of course, this could be adapted to work for other buildings.
Students next enter the Launch phase of the project where they brainstorm the key question and then determine what they are going to need to know to answer this question. During this phase students are placed in appropriate groups and complete a warm up activity that helps them connect with each other as learners and classmates. Guidelines for appropriate interactions are also established. Students then move into Building Knowledge Understanding and Skills where they work with each other and their teacher to gather the information needed to come to some kind of response or answer. This may involve online research, teacher led lessons, videos, reading, experiments. This will be an important period during which appropriate math and science skills will be developed and strengthened. For this unit, I intend to look in depth at graphs relating to climate change, determine the causes of climate change, and explore the inequities that will result from climate change using data and statistics. Students will also determine how their own city will be impacted.
During developing and Revising Ideas and Products students generate designs, build prototypes, construct arguments and receive critical feedback from other teams and from adults. Students should already be familiar with the rubric for scoring which should also be shared with parents at the beginning of the project. Finally, students will present their “products” or “answers” to the original question. This could take the form of a presentation, or a model or a video. Students will go through several iterations of their school retrofit with teacher and peer feedback at each level to refine their understandings and choices. In the final phase of Project Based Learning Presenting Products and Answers to Driving Questions students will share their collaborative designs and justify their choices. How do the choices they made about redesigning the school building help solve or adapt to climate change? Students will need to articulate in writing or orally on each key point. Students are then scored on a rubric using peer and teacher feedback.
Direct Instruction/Teacher Presentations
To support Project Based Learning, teachers will need to supplement student research with specific content. With online learning a distinct possibility for the near AND distant future, it is important to have well crafted mechanisms for presentation. While presentations such as these are often teacher led, they can be an important resource for students to refer to on an ongoing basis. For this unit students will need some basic information on solar radiation, greenhouse gases, carbon footprints, and renewable energy sources.
Digital Learning
In addition to PowerPoint presentations, students may need to collaborate online either by researching and collecting information or by using small online “rooms” to meet with teacher supervision in order to collaborate on design and refine arguments they will need to make for presentation. A critical aspect of the project is for students to discuss their ideas about climate change solutions for the school and work out an agreement on what that will look like. Students will also need to collaborate on a shared platform for sketching their engineered designs should remote learning be essential. In the absence of in person learning, students can use chat rooms or meets to discuss, with teachers dropping in to check on progress.
Laboratory Experiments
Using the scientific method, students will conduct several controlled experiences with independent and dependent variables. Relevant to this unit, students will conduct labs on the effect of color on light/heat absorption and on the properties of insulation. Students will need some basic lab equipment for these labs (beakers, thermometers, insulated cups) and will need to write a lab report with components of the scientific method to reinforce understanding of science lab procedures.
Design Challenge
For this project, students will be asked to create a model of their school with mitigations and adaptations for climate change evident. Creation of a tangible model is age appropriate for middle school students as they still very much need to do and create, enhancing student engagement. Students will need materials for sketching a prototype, which includes multiple iterations and feedback and for the final product that may include but are not limited to: paper, cardboard, glue, paint, scissors, markers, foil, note cards, colored paper. Teacher may want to consider the cost and accessibility of materials especially if students are at home with school closures.
Presentations
Students can present their designs and justifications for retrofit design choices to other peer groups, to other students in the building, to teachers and administrators. This strategy allows students to strengthen their communication skills and refine their reasons for the choices they made in their school design. Students will be required to articulate the choices they made regarding climate change. For example: “We chose to paint the roof white to reflect the heat from the sun and lower the temperature of the building so that not as much air conditioning needs to be used in the summer. This will also lower the school’s fossil fuel consumption.”
Classroom Management
Teacher must establish a clear set of behavioral expectations during this unit. How are students going to work together? How will they respectfully communicate? What happens if they disagree or run into barriers? How do they ask for help? PBL for 21st Century Success has excellent suggestions for how to foster a healthy classroom environment.
Rubric Assessment
Students and parents will receive a rubric at the beginning of the unit so that they fully understand what the expectations are and how they will be graded. Rubrics have levels of accomplishment and can assess engagement, effort, content and presentation skills. Rubric assessment will help students hone in on the justification they need for each retrofit choice they make for their model.
Comments: