Purpose:

  • To do project-based learning, which emphasizes learning activities that are long-term, interdisciplinary, student-centered, and integrated with real world issues and practices.
  • To provide the opportunity for students to apply and integrate the content of different subject areas throughout a project.
  • To give students an opportunity to develop social entrepreneurship skills.
  • To teach students relevant lessons about sustainability, economics, and marketing.

Preparation:

A team of eighth grade students adopted families from Victory Ohana, a local transitional shelter that helps women with drug and alcohol rehabilitation. They decided to infuse one of our school’s themes, sustainability, as well as the eighth grade theme of social entrepreneurship into this interdisciplinary project. They planned to create earth-friendly Christmas gifts out of recycled materials. These gifts would be sold and the funds raised would be used to purchase Christmas gifts for the women of Victory Ohana.

Students started by learning about different concepts in math, science, and social studies. They were given a challenge in science class: How can we turn people’s trash into treasures? Once students agreed on the products to be crafted, they were asked to scour their homes to find the necessary materials. Nothing could be purchased; everything had to be reused or recycled.

Science: Students learned about the importance of the three R's: reduce, reuse, and recycle. In chemistry, they learned about the physical and chemical properties of matter. This led to an improved understanding of the processes that are involved with changes in matter, as biodegradable versus non-biodegradable substances are better understood when their chemical structures and bonds are examined. Understanding matter and the domino effect of disposal and cycles helped students reach a deeper understanding of managing and conserving resources.

Math: Students read about and discussed fundamental economic principles such as wants, needs, and interdependence. This helped them see that they had to not only produce gift items people would want, but rely on one another to ensure that they had enough supplies to produce the items they agreed upon. Concepts such as supply, demand, market equilibrium, and marginal utility gave students the tools they needed to determine fair prices for their goods and a means to adjust prices on the day of the sale. It also helped them make a connection to their unit on graphing systems of linear equations. Lessons culminated with the principles of contingent behavior and how one can mathematically determine how a person may behave in the marketplace.

Social Studies: Students focused on advertising and marketing. They deconstructed print ads to learn methods of advertising and developed a marketing concept, including slogans and print ads for the products. This was done in a unit on media literacy in which students evaluated the influence of advertising on their buying habits and enhanced their ability to discern when the market is targeting or exploiting them. American consumerism was examined and the challenge it presents to the Earth's sustainability. Students were asked to write a teenager's guide to conservation, reduction, and moderation, and use it to create "uncommercials" which promote conservation and reduction in consumption.

Action:

In their Advisory class, students created earth-friendly gifts, wrapping paper and gift tags. They organized a sale and sold items such as purses made out of empty Capri Sun juice pouches and jewelry made out of wires, glass and bottle caps. Once the sale was complete, the students created a budget based on their proceeds and the items on their Victory Ohana families’ wish lists. They purchased gifts with the money they had raised.

Reflection:

At the end of the project, students were asked to write a reflection that synthesized their understanding of the concepts they had learned in all three classes. This provided them with an opportunity to both describe their experience with the project, as well as tie the curricular strands together in their own minds.

Demonstration:

On the final day of school before Christmas vacation, the students boarded a bus and took their gifts to Victory Ohana. When they saw the emotions of the women who lived at Victory Ohana, they saw that this project was so much more than just a series of classroom lessons about sustainability, economics and marketing. It was about life.