Outdoor Project Based Learning, an Introduction

Have you heard of the term Project-Based Learning?

In Seventh Grade Science Field Trips At School I, one of the suggested outdoor activities is for groups in the class to design interpretive signs.  There are a number of skills that students need to practice and research to take this project from start to finish.  As such, it can be an example of Project Based Learning (PBL). 

"[It is] helpful to distinguish a "dessert project" - a short, intellectually-light project served up after the teacher covers the content of a unit in the usual way - from a "main course" project, in which the project is the unit." (pblworks.org)

PBL allows curriculum to be learned in a way that is meaningful and relevant. After all, what constitutes essential learning for students in this century? There is an over-abundance of information; how do we filter what we need to teach? If we teach mainly facts, then what we assess is 'memory'. Most information is at most of our fingertips. But what we can't Google is understanding ('Now I get it!') and skills (critical thinking, doing research, problem solving).

PBL also allows for responsive (differentiated) instruction. After some formal and informal assessment at the outset of the unit/project, the teacher generates several groupings based on the gap between what students know and what they need to know at the completion of the project. He or she makes mini-lessons for each group to help get the project completed. 

Pblworks.org defines Project-Based Learning this way: PBL is a teaching method in which students learn by actively engaging in real-world and personally meaningful projects... 

...There are key characteristics that differentiate "doing a project" from engaging in rigorous Project Based Learning. ... In Project Based Learning, the project is the vehicle for teaching the important knowledge and skills student need to learn. The project contains and frames curriculum and instruction.

In contrast to dessert projects, PBL requires critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, and various forms of communication. To answer a Driving Question and create high-quality work, students need to do much more than remember information. They need to use higher-order thinking skills and learn to work as a team.

Because PBL projects are carried out to pursue the answers to a Driving Question, students' efforts are focused around the curriculum expectations.  Because PBL projects are designed around being meaningful, students are more likely to be motivated by its purpose and by the accountability to a real audience. Here is a fun video to demystify the writing of Driving Questions:

Answering that one question leads to many more questions. Take the example of designing and building the interpretive signs mentioned at the beginning of this article.  The teacher could just assign that project, but the risk is that the activity will be icing onto the unit cake, rather than a meaningful main ingredient of it. To be the latter, the teacher can introduce the project within the framework of a driving question such as "How can we design informative signage about our schoolyard habitat?" The questions flowing out of that Driving Questions run the gamut from 'What is in our schoolyard habitat?' to 'How do we design and build signage that stands the test of time?".  Depending on the grouping, the teacher can require the following information on the groups interpretive sign:

• Location of the property, from address to biome
• History of the property, from the school's history to the First Nation tribe(s) that lived there before settlement
• What plants and animals can be found on the school's property?
• One or more interesting facts about one plant or animal.

One aspect of what makes PBL projects meaningful, and what helps hold students accountable is that students know that their project will be a real contribution to their community. The class and their teacher plan an event, a Celebration of Learning, at the completion and installation of their interpretive signs to which the school community is invited.

Outdoor PBL project ideas for 4th to 8th graders in your school are coming up in the next several weeks.