Project Based Learning

The school year is coming to a close and a lot of us are thinking about next year (well some of us are trying to get to the end of this year, but you know what I mean). I would like to share with you a PBL project I did this year with my sixth graders; that they really loved!!! 

First I got in touch with our local zoo and partnered with them for this project. The students were to design a zoo enclosure that would appeal to a tween audience because the average age of the a zoo goer was between 5-9 years old. The enclosure had to include two animals and come with a guide book. They could not use any animals the zoo already had. Students also needed to identify which area of the zoo the enclosure would most likely be located. 

Some of the questions my students came up with that they need to know:
What are biomes?
Which biomes are already represented in the zoo? 
What animals are already represented at the zoo?
What do the animals we choose eat?
What type of relationships do these animals have?
What types of plants exists were these animals live?
What is our budget?
What are tweens interested in seeing? 

Check out that interactive walk through in the middle

There were a lot more, but I am just saying building a fake animal enclosure is not only fun and interesting, but it makes kids think about how living and non-living things work together. What living things need to survive? Through this project we learned about biomes, so students could choose what type of enclosure to do. It was just wonderful all around, put your own spin on it. You'll be surprised all you can do, and how many subjects you can incorporate

waterfalls and pandas how could you want more

Yeah that is a slide (with a clear bottom)

Working hard!!!

 As you can see, they worked so hard and were very engaged!!! Happy Teaching!!
Love