To help you effectively implement Project Based Learning with your students, this site provides support for both high quality project design and the practice of project based teaching.
To support you in designing high quality projects, you will find model projects to adopt, adapt, or use as inspiration for an original project of your own.
To support you in shifting your teaching practices to PBL, you will find specific and detailed strategies to use with students as you implement projects, as well as several example videos of the strategies in action.
Find more projects, project planning tools and teaching strategies at my.pblworks.org.
Science • Elementary
Students design nature-inspired solutions to problems faced by humans.
Interdisciplinary, Science • Elementary
Students present a unique engineering design for an invention to make it possible for humans to survive Mars exploration.
Mathematics • Elementary
Students develop a concept and plan for a new business while learning key math skills.
English Language Arts, Social Studies • Elementary
Students explore how they can act as change agents and meet their civic responsibilities.
English Language Arts, Arts & Music • Elementary
Students design and present photo essays about their community.
Health or Physical Education • Elementary
Students research aspects of health and wellness to improve the school community.
Social Studies • Elementary, Middle School, High School
Students actively engage in the political process by identifying a problem and designing an action plan to raises awareness or solve the problem.
Social Studies • Middle School
Students tell a compelling story using data about a high-needs community issue.
Science • Middle School
Students experiment with and test two approaches to growing vegetables, grounding their experiment in research on sustainable gardening practices.
English Language Arts • Middle School
Students study adolescence through the lens of their own experiences, the experiences of their peers, literature, and the work of expert researchers to create a “Survival Guide” for 5th-6th graders.
Mathematics • Middle School, High School
As market research analysts working for locally-owned companies, students determine the most profitable price point for one of their goods or services.
Science • High School
Students design community spaces for environmental sustainability.
Science • High School
Students use the engineering design process to develop water filters to meet the needs of a specific community struggling to access clean water.
Science • High School
Students determine the health and well being of a local environment and connect it to the larger watershed to which they belong.
Mathematics • High School
Students use the engineering design process and geometric modeling to redesign a product’s packaging to make it more sustainable.
English Language Arts • High School
Students explore the art of storytelling, investigate the craft of storytelling, and create and perform their own true story.
Social Studies • High School
Students unpack concepts of “primitive” and “civilized,” creating multimedia exhibitions of ancient societies while critiquing the labels placed upon them.
Social Studies • High School
Students use economics and marketing to develop a proposal for a new vending machine products.
Use these project based teaching strategies to develop your skills in implementing BIE’s Project Based Teaching Practices and cultivating Deeper Learning Competencies in your students. The strategies are organized by BIE’s Project Path to give you a sense of when in the course of a project they are most useful and this table shows how the strategies align to the deeper learning competencies.
How to create and use norms in your classroom to build, positive, productive culture. To learn more watch this video on community agreements.
How to create roles to maximize the effectiveness of student teams.
How to initiate inquiry and access prior knowledge through the creation of student-generate questions. To learn more watch this video on need to knows.
How to manage student teams while building students' skills of self-management and collaboration, and classroom culture. To learn more watch this video on team contracts.
How to sustain inquiry throughout the project using the student-generated list of need to know questions.
How to help students keep track of their questions and learning as they research.
How to quickly and efficiently formatively assess and create opportunities for students to reflect on their learning.
How to use rubrics as a tool to throughout the project to support learning, revision, and reflection.
How to use critique and revision to improve student products and learning throughout the project.
How to engage with outside experts to increase authenticity, which also increases accountability and enthusiasm.
How to engage students in critique and revision of the project.
How to increase audience engagement during final product exhibitions.
The Out of the Gate project explores and examines the use of Project Based Learning (PBL) by Teacher Education Program (TEP) faculty to prepare preservice teachers to teach PBL “out of the gate,” so they enter K-12 public school districts ready to engage all students in meaningful deeper learning. The goal of this project is to build the capacity of TEP faculty to teach and support preservice teachers to use PBL as an instructional method for all students, including those who are furthest from opportunity (i.e., students who are living in poverty, students of color).
Thanks to generous funding from ECMC Foundation, BIE is providing customized professional development to faculty, and preservice and cooperating teachers at four teacher education programs and 12 district partners in four states, identified below. Learn more about this project here.
For more information, email [email protected].
Forest Hills Public Schools
Lowell Public Schools
Kenowa Hills Public Schools
Kent Innovation High School
Kentwood Public Schools
Canal Winchester School District
Olentangy Local School District
Westerville City Schools
Whitehall City Schools
Worthington City School District
Bismarck Public Schools
