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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.

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.

CIESE sponsors and designs interdisciplinary projects that teachers throughout the world can use to enhance their curriculum through compelling use of the Internet. We focus on projects that utilize real time data available from the Internet, and collaborative projects that utilize the Internet's potential to reach peers and experts around the world. Below is a catalog of projects that are currently being or have been sponsored by CIESE . The mission of the Center for Improved Engineering and Science Education (CIESE) is to help teachers use the Internet, math software, CD-ROMs, computer-based laboratory systems (CBLS), and other tools to create dynamic, inquiry-oriented classrooms that promote achievement of content standards in science and math. To this end, they offer a number of interdisciplinary projects grouped into four categories: collaborative projects, partner projects, real-time data projects, and projects using primary sources and archived collections.

After you've hooked your students on the PBL with a special entry event, and you've done the initial launch of the PBL with the driving question, you then go into gathering the Need to Know List of questions of the students. First, students need to understand what good questions are. (Bloom's is a good starting point). Then they should ask questions about the content, the skills, and the process required in the PBL.

This is a fantastic program for anyone who teaches about space/astronomy. You get matched with an astronomer partner for a whole year and get lots of great resources. If you want to participate you have to attend both days of the workshop in Tucson, but it's worth doing (and it's free). I did it a few years ago if you have any questions. 

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