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20 Ideas for Engaging Projects via @edutopia http://t.co/YXTP9kdk

"The mission of ePALS Classroom Exchange is to offer safe, innovative ways for learners to make contact with other cultures. They currently connect over 4.5 million users from 191 countries, speaking 136 languages, by providing built-in Webmail language translation and safety features such as monitored e-mail and profanity filters. All of the tools and resources on the site are free to anyone with a computer, anywhere in the world. The site also offers collaborative projects that students can join, as well as tools for creating projects and contacting students in remote locations."

ePals is the social network optimized for K-12 learning. Over half a million classrooms in 200 countries and territories have joined the ePals Global Community to connect, collaborate and exchange ideas. ePals now translates in 35 languages! The benefits of the site are that the students can connect with other students and classrooms around the globe. You connect with them by the projects that you are working on in the classroom. This gives the common ground to talk about back and forth. The possible pitfalls are if you get a classroom that is not as involved as yours. It could be a let down and you may have to find another classroom that you could connect with.

This site is free and connects you with other educators seeking to connect classrooms for global projects. It has great safety features and has a variety of projects for all content areas and grade levels. You can form e-mail pen pal connections with classrooms around the world. Very cool!

Awesome on authentic learning.

Project Densho The Densho Educational Web site gives students access to a wealth of primary source material relating to the incarceration of Japanese-Americans during World War II. Project Densho's partnership with historians at Stanford University produced curriculum to help students and teachers use these valuable resources in classroom activities. This is a powerful tool to bring inquiry-based learning into middle and high school social studies classrooms. This is a powerful site for inquiry-based learning for upper grades; however, there isn't anything already created that we can enroll our classes in... unless it's there and I'm missing it.

Project FeederWatch is a winter-long survey of birds that visit feeders at backyards, nature centers, schools, community areas, and other locales in North America. FeederWatchers periodically count the birds they see at their feeders from November through early April and send their counts to Project FeederWatch. FeederWatch data help scientists track broadscale movements of winter bird populations and long-term trends in bird distribution and abundance. This project gives an authentic reason to learn how to record data using graphs and charts, research, and writing. All of this can be done using technology. Since areas all around North America are involved, it ties into the global community. Teachers within a school or district could work together to promote collaboration. The biggest pitfall would be finding a location that would be appropriate to place the feeder.

A great reminder...

This global collaborative project at http://ciese.org/curriculum/squareproj/ -- Registration closes SEPT 30 Driving questions: Why HERE and not THERE? Presents students with a world map and two animals/insects from different areas (EG Monarch butterfly and Australian stick insect specimens). Pose a challenging question: Why here and not there? Why there and not here? How can we find out? Register class on Square of Life, an Internet-based collaborative project that has students investigate their local environment and share information with students from around the world. Students examine a square yard of local ground and organize what they find into categories they define themselves: living and nonliving, plants and animals. Through close examination, they organize small creatures into groups by shared characteristics, and learn to discriminate between classes of animals, including insects and isopods. Theorize about the role of habitat and niche in insect distribution. Share their findings with Australian students (or students from around the glove) and report their conclusions about Why here and not there? Why there and not here?

The students then created a digital book that included their memoir as well as their personal philosophy that they wrote in World History. Ultimately, the project culminated in an exhibition where the students presented their digital books to an audience of family, friends, peers and community members. Each student individually presented his or her book and read an excerpt of the memoir. For many students it was the first time they had such "high stakes" in a project and they simultaneously had to work on elements of public speaking along with the project development.

Driving question: How do we describe motion and change in our world scientifically? In the Rube Goldberg Project, students will build a Rube Goldberg Machine (by definition, "of, relating to, or being a contrivance that brings about by complicated means what apparently could have been accomplished simply....") and explain the phyics of motion in that machine. Some examples of rube goldberg devices in the past, in both movies and pop culture, are the device that Pee Wee Herman uses to make breakfast in the movie "Pee Wee's Big Adventure," or the game "Mousetrap." Students will be able to explain and demonstrate the physics of motion (specifically Newtons Three Laws, Velocity, Acceleration, Kinetic and Potential Energy, and Momentum) through running their machine and will be able to calculate the velocity, acceleration, and energy generated by their machines as they run to complete simple tasks. They will have a working knowledge of simple motion equations and how to calculate in real life situations. This project has activities, assessments and resources included Requires a considerable amount of time and materials, but very engaging and student centered

The goal of It's About Chime is to have the students explore the mathematics & physics behind sound waves and wind chimes. The students will engineer chime machines that ride the wind to produce melodic tunes for enjoyment. This project offers a great way to incorporate a real world audience into teaching the physics and math of sound waves. The pitfalls of this may be the materials and time required, but the project is well laid out and has a great deal of resources.

We'll explore during session 8...

As we become an older country, our greatest stories are sometimes lost when members of the generation before us dies. This four week unit is designed to encourage students to discover the hidden stories of their families and community. During the course of this project, students will interview members of their community and/or family members and develop a newsletter that provides background of the time period of the story and the person telling the story. Additional stories will be shared with the students by downloading clips from the stories that have been shared with members of Story Corps(www.nationaldayoflistening.org), one of the largest oral history projects in the world.

Description: "The resources in Xpeditions provide an opportunity to cross the curriculums of science, social studies, math, and language arts using National Geography Standards. At the same time students are engaged in unique and well planned inquiry, project, and problem based activities." Benefits: Just about all the work is done for you. Lesson plans, video links, everything right at your fingertips. Pitfalls: Deciding what you want to do and where to start.

tons of resoures and ideas for STEM and PBL

This project leads 5th through high school students through an investigation into the impact of junk mail. Students use math to calculate the amount of unwanted mail received and science to determine the amount of environmental impact on the environment caused by this mail. A benefit of this project is that a basic outline of activities is included. A pitfall is that quite a bit of class time would be required to complete this project.

This is a very comprehensive guide, with lots of examples of PBL projects.

Webinar Wednesdays occur twice a month and shine a spotlight on all things PBL.  The upcoming webinars are highlighted below and are open for registration.  Future webinar topics will include service learning, math, literacy, globalization, web 2.0, leadership, and many more.  The presenters are members of BIE's National Faculty & Staff and special guests. Registration for these 60-minute events is free. We will broadcast them twice on the designated day at 12pm and 3pm Pacific Time. The webinars will be recorded and uploaded to BIE's YouTube Channel shortly after each broadcast.   Webinar Schedule Wednesday, October 5, 2011 STEM and PBL Wednesday, October 12, 2011 Online Learning Environments and PBL Wednesday, November 2, 2011 PBL in Advanced Placement Classes Wednesday, November 16, 2011 Differentiated Instruction and PBL