As Dorset’s coop dreams became a reality, students gathered new skills
What does it look like to break one enormous project into several project-based learning units?
For Dorset students to go from dreaming about fresh eggs to actually building a chicken coop required two strategies: breaking the PBL into phases, and asking students to assume different roles along the way.
Let’s break down just how Dorset’s chicken coop project stayed true to its PBL roots and manageable for students and educators.
Green Mountain 7th graders and HS physics students apply math and science to a real-world problem: hitting targets. They collaborate in multi-age teams to design and build projectile launchers. Then they calculate trajectories and calibrate their creations before taking aim.
Flood Brook School buzzed with excitement. Students brought in their projects on tables or on carts, the weight sometimes shared with friends. As they set up their displays, parents, teachers, younger students and community members milled about, waiting for the opportunity to learn more about student projects and process. One student fired his trebuchet in the center of the room to great fanfare. 
When things get tough, the tough use tools.
Last spring Christie Nold, a 6th grade teacher at Frederick H. Tuttle Middle School, was at Burlington’s Jazz Fest listening to student musicians when she got some disturbing news: someone had spray-painted racist hate speech on her school’s campus.