Seasonal PBL units are a wonderful way to integrate the themes and topics of a season into a Project Based Learning unit. This educational approach encourages inquiry, student voice, and increases engagement through real-world authentic problem solving and challenges. But coming up with ideas for PBL units can be challenging. Seasonal PBL unit ideas are a great idea for so many reasons, chief among them that they are typically already topics that facilitators have experience teaching. Here are a few reasons why seasonal PBL units are a great idea.
1. Seasonal PBL Units Create Authentic Experiences
By posing real world problems and challenges around seasonal topics, educators can take thematic units that were simple projects and craftivities and turn them into meaningful and authentic Project Based Learning opportunities.
For example, during spring many elementary teachers focus on pollinators or studying butterflies. While these units or projects are fun for students, as facilitators we are always trying to ensure the maximum amount of retention and efficiency for our units. According to a study showcased on Edutopia, research has shown that Project Based Learning is full of research supported instructional practices, that are considered “best practices” for student knowledge retention and critical thinking.
Instead of simply observing a caterpillar turn into a butterfly and journaling our observations, how much more powerful would it be for students to engage in a spring seasonal PBL unit by speak with entomologists who study butterflies and track their migration patterns across northern America?
How impactful would it be for students to help those entomologists track butterflies in their area? While observing the development of a caterpillar into a butterfly could still be part of the unit, students are engaged in more authentic real-world application for their learning by participating in solving a real-world problem with the knowledge that they learn about butterflies and their migration patterns.
2. Seasonal Project-Based Learning Helps Encourage Authentic Community Partnerships
In our local communities, seasonal events and activities are always occurring. Whether it's the local high school putting on their haunted house each fall or the chamber of commerce hosting the farmers market each spring, our community often functions in seasons. When searching for community partners and thinking about the roles community partners play in our PBL units, seasonality comes into play more than we might think.
By incorporating Project-Based Learning on a seasonal basis, we are opening our classrooms to community partners who also function on a seasonal event basis. What if instead of completing writing prompts about scary haunted houses or creating craft ghosts, the local high school students ask your class to engage in an autumn Project Based Learning unit to help them develop a room within the haunted house that is themed around ghosts? What if instead of studying the life cycle of a plant, the local farmers market reached out during a summer Project Based Learning unit and asked for students to host a plant sale during it’s opening day?
Developing community partnerships around seasonal project-based learning units, lends itself to more authentic and meaningful study of content areas and standards.
3. Seasonal Project Based Learning Lessens PBL Unit Planning
As a veteran facilitator, I can tell you that it is very common for teachers beginning in Project-Based Learning to think that they have to start all over. But the truth is many of the lessons, resources, and activities used in the traditional classroom can be modified to support a PBL unit along the same theme or topic.
Within elementary education, seasonal lessons, units, and activities are very common. This means that veteran elementary teachers have a plethora of seasonal resources already at their disposal. When beginning to turn a thematic unit or activity into a Project Based Learning unit, looking for resources that can support the need to knows of students can be almost a relief when looking at seasonal resources. Many of the seasonal activities and resources used in the classroom, can be used to answer need to knows in order to be successful in solving a real world problem that occurs during that season.
For example, each year I would take a break from Project Based Learning and do a Holidays Around the World unit. As I began to become more aware of the world around me, I realized that A Holidays Around the World unit was not the best way to serve my students during the month of December.
The next year my teaching partner and I, tackled turning our thematic unit into a Project Based Learning unit by making it and ourselves more culturally aware. By truly focusing on when these holidays were actually celebrated and studying them during their designated celebrations, inviting family members who celebrated those holidays to come in and share their traditions, and focusing on a driving question that allowed us to answer need to knows around common holidays, my students dove deeper into the importance of celebrations in different cultures than I ever could have imagined in our winter PBL unit.
However, MANY of the Holidays Around the World activities and resources that I had gathered over the years were able to be used to support our journey. Instead of going back to the drawing board, I first went to my resources to look for things that could be adapted or utilized in different ways.
These are just a few of the ways that implementing Project-Based Learning with the seasons in mind is a great way to approach PBL unit planning. Seasonal Project-Based Learning is a powerful way to encourage critical thinking and deeper content exploration with your students.
To read more about seasonal Project Based Learning, go to my Seasonal PBL tag here. Or click on the season you are interested in below.