This was a project-based learning (PBL) activity to kick off the thermodynamics unit. For those who are unfamiliar, PBL is an alternative teaching style. Traditionally, we disseminate information first, have students learn it, then assign problems that use these skills. With PBL, a problem is assigned first – and students DO NOT (yet) have the required knowledge or skills to fully answer it. As they struggle through, and as teachable moments arise, the teacher fills in the knowledge gaps so that students can properly tackle the problem.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I was up-front with my students at the start: I wasn’t sure how long this activity would last – 1 day or 3 weeks – or how it would be assessed. But I wanted all of us to step outside our collective comfort zones and try something new. I had students work in groups of 3 or 4. They were pretty well engaged, so I pressed onward. Each day I introduced a leading design question, and waited for a teachable moment to help them fill in the gaps. For example, “Determine the capacity of the beverage container, what material it is made of and its mass.” Or, “What will be the effect of adding milk to the hot beverage?” I purposefully kept these questions fairly vague, so that they would need to decide things like how much milk should be added. Sometimes it took multiple days to come to a reasonable answer to one of these questions, and I accepted that.<\/p>\n The teachable moments arrived right on schedule. First, it was heat capacity, open\/closed\/isolated systems, and the laws of thermodynamics. Then, it was calculations for the 2nd law of Thermodynamics. Then, enthalpy and solvation. Finally, calorimetry. I covered nearly an entire chapter from the text book in a reasonable amount of time, with an authentic learning task that kept students engaged for nearly 3 weeks. I even got a lab in! (Students had to determine the enthalpy of solution of sugar – the temperature change due to sugar dissolving in water)<\/p>\n Just before the Christmas break, I asked students to collect their work, make sure it was neat, and submit for grading.<\/p>\n My biggest fear at the start was that this would be a waste of time and I would have to re-teach the thermodynamics concepts traditionally at the end. While it remains to be seen if that will be necessary or not, I think the students mostly enjoyed the experience. It’s definitely something I will do again.<\/p>\n Have you tried anything like this? Got any ideas for what other PBL-style projects I could try in grade 12 chemistry or grade 10 science? Post in the comments below!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As part of a joint effort between my Cohort action plan and my school-based action plan, I recently set my grade 12 AP Chemistry class a task: How Might We design the ideal hot beverage container? This was a project-based learning (PBL) activity to kick off the thermodynamics unit. For those who are unfamiliar, PBL … Continue reading “The Ideal Hot Beverage Container: PBL in AP Chemistry”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":153,"featured_media":99,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-classroom-reflections","category-pbl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/jasonbornstein\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/jasonbornstein\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/jasonbornstein\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/jasonbornstein\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/153"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/jasonbornstein\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/jasonbornstein\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/jasonbornstein\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97\/revisions\/100"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/jasonbornstein\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/jasonbornstein\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/jasonbornstein\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/jasonbornstein\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"what](\"http:\/\/presentlygifted.weebly.com\/uploads\/1\/9\/5\/4\/19542243\/7212809_orig.gif\")