Building Learning Communities 2011

See how one teacher's challenge-based learning project (Disney Planet Challenge) transformed her classroom around a focused theme, unifying her class as they were empowered with purpose-driven technology skills. Projects included videos, podcasts, blogs, Scratch games, a Web site, presentations and Skype calls. Challenge-based learning fosters an environment of collaboration, creativity, purpose and an excitement for learning. In this challenge-based learning project, students had to identify a goal, develop guiding questions and activities, create a plan and put their plan into action. Students became advocates for a threatened species, the Blanding’s turtle, collecting and studying data around a Blanding’s turtle head-starting program, proposing a potential preservation area and also developing a publicity campaign to alert people in Concord about the turtles - including stories, brochures, posters, podcasts, public events and movies. This project was submitted to the Disney Planet Challenge national competition in February 2011 and was awarded second place.