One of my goals as a educator is to empower my students to go out into their communities and find solutions to complex problems that they are passionate about. Through my work at The York School and Future Design School, I have come to believe that one of the best ways we can do this is through project based learning that is meaningful and relevant. One of my most successful teaching experiences was in grade 7 science last year where my colleague Robin and I decided to no longer teach science in separate units such as “chemistry” or “ecosystems.” Instead we used one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals “Life Below Water” as our unit theme and challenged students to use their understanding of science to come up with solutions to problems faced by the oceans. By the end of the unit our students presented one of their final projects to the principal and head of catering, which helped push forward a plastic straw ban in the cafeteria. I believe one of the reasons why this unit and project were so successful and positively received is that we helped students (to quote FDS) “fall in love with the problem.” Students became so passionate about reducing plastic waste and protecting the oceans that they completed their projects even though they knew they were not being marked. They just saw the importance of the problem and felt empowered to solve it.
One of the challenges I’ve been facing with my students and colleagues for the past few years is how to make something like this happen with our grade 10 students. We have been trying to create an authentic, problem based, interdisciplinary unit in which students evaluate potential solutions to climate change. But students never seem to “fall in love” with climate change! In fact most years the results of course surveys suggest that it is their least favourite unit.
Since climate change is a unit that is taught in both the grade 10 Science and World Issues courses it seemed to makes sense to combine the two and come up with one project. If you think about it, climate change is not a problem that can be solved or even understood without knowledge of chemistry, physics, biology, environmental systems, economics, politics, geography etc…In order for the project to be genuinely interdisciplinary it has to be a task that would not be possible without disciplinary grounding in both the humanities and science. It also has to meet the criteria for the interdisciplinary MYP unit rubric. This is the part that often presents the biggest challenge. The rubrics are not very flexible. Maybe it’s about time to consider whether that really matters. Do we really care more about whether the IBO gives us some nit-picky negative feedback? Or is it more important that our students are scientifically literate, passionate individuals who go out and make a difference? Just thinking out loud…..
More specific feedback from students has been:
- They need to see clearer connections between how what they learn in the World Issues course fits with what they learn in the Science course.
- They need a project that is relevant and meaningful to them and not just another assessment with a huge workload.
- They need to connect to experts in the field as well as their peers around the world to broaden their perspective and understanding of the issue.
Going forward I hope my experience participating in Cohort 21 will allow me and my colleagues to come up with a more effective learning experience for our students. In particular I hope we can create an authentic and engaging interdisciplinary unit and project that empowers students to change the world!
@jagostino,
You are definitely firing on all cylinders in this post (no carbon footprint implied!). Falling in love with complex problems is such a noble goal for teenagers, allowing them to develop transferrable skills and understand integrated knowledge areas also huge.
I wonder, however, if “changing the world” is too daunting to teenagers. Having taught the World Issues course, I also found myself reacting strongly to strong opposition for yet another climate change unit. My hunch is, students have been doing projects around the environment for the past 15 years… and nothing has changed, in fact, things are getting worse! If I was there age, I wouldn’t care either!
So what do we do? Well, helping students discover vital connections between disciplines is never a bad idea. Finding real-world applications for collective action (like your cafeteria straw example) certainly helps motivate a taste for advocacy and change in youth. I wonder though, if change wasn’t the goal, would imaginations run more freely? What if the sky was the limit and the solutions were not to prevent disaster but rebuild from one? What if you used the indigenous concept of 7 generations to speculate well into the future, or try to solve problems from the past using the available science at that time.
I believe the environment is THE conversation to have at the moment, but perhaps we need to “change” the way we approach such a hotbed “climate”, so that students can once again “warm” up to a “global” perspective.
Julianna, Wonderful to see your thoughts on curriculum design and teaching and learning innovation in this forum. I have shared this post with my senior science students in the Faculty of Education as an example of how to move towards project-based learning to engage learners with meaningful connections. So often the textbook becomes the syllabus and the question of “Why are we learning this?” is not addressed in context. It takes a trailblazer to mentor systemic change in pedagogy! Keep at it! It will make all the difference in your students’ learning experiences. Thank you for sharing.
Linda!!! So good to hear from you 🙂 Thank you so much for your feedback. I appreciate the support. I hope you are doing well.