Project Based Learning…What???

[/caption]

Student made scale model of the planet Uranus, showing solid core and liquid/icy mantel with blue gaseous core.

I’m tired of learning about the planets….same thing….year after year….

My 6th graders needed a challenge. Reading the textbook is one thing (boring too)…but bringing the planets into our classroom was another. I wanted the students to understand the scale of the planets and the solar system, along with exhibiting the core of the planet. They came up with many clever ways to show the exterior and interior. Once planets were built to scale, the classroom was turned into a scale model of the solar system, with the sun being the front door. From there, the planets were measured by Astronomical Units (AU) from Earth being one AU to Pluto, Charon, Quaoar, and Sedna being 45 AU’s away.

Student created Neptune planet with “window” into the core and mantle.

While students were constructing their planets, and scaling out the classroom, they were also researching and writing up a report about their planets. Once the planets and solar system was complete, classes from within the school were invited to “Tour the Solar System”, and each sixth grader gave 4-5 minute oral presentation from their research about their planet. The entire “tour” took 20 minutes, but the presentations were “out of this world”.

[caption id="attachment_143" align="alignnone" width="168"] student contructed Saturn with rings around the planet. The other half (unseen) is the core and mantle.

Students were graded not only on their presentations, research, and construction of planets, but on collaboration and cooperation between peers. Some students obviously had smaller planets, (like Venus, Mercury, and Mars) and other students had enormous planets (like Jupiter and Saturn). Through daily observations of students, I watched how students volunteered to help eachother and work together, to finish the project together. It was a wonderful process to watch and facilitate. I can’t help to think my sixth grade students learned so much more about our planets and solar system doing this project, that they ever could have from the textbook.

Project Based Learning is a way to facilitate student learning, by putting the responsiblility of learning on them. As you can see by these projects, the unit was a success.

You can see by the 6 foot ladder that the planet is perched on, the planet is enormous.

DIagram of the interior of the planet.