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I remember being in 8th grade civics while the 2012 election was going on. We were constantly doing debates and discussions on current issues, we had a mock election of our own, and the class mostly consisted of conversations rather than work/tests.

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I had an experience with authenticity in learning once when I was in my senior year in high school. We did a yearlong "life" project where we had to plan a wedding for the first part, and then plan how we would take care of our family in the second part. We had partners we did the project with and had to plan our our budgets, finances, mortgage payments, car payments, taxes, etc. We were required to physically go to businesses and find out costs for each portion and add it to the project. Each week we had a different "life event" given to us at random that we had to add into the project and figure out how to deal with it. This taught me how to do taxes, what goes into purchasing a car and a home, how to budget for personal expenses, and also how to communicate with businesses to get information about all that we needed to find out.

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As part of my middle school Family and Consumer science class, we explored the idea of food shortages and discussed how families owning gardens could solve this problem. As part of this project we would devote time each week to care after the school garden.

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One time I had to do a scrap book for my novel East of Eden. We had to make a personalized scrap book for the novel using pictures, words, and filling out activity requirements. My favorite activity had been finding a song that related to one of the main characters. I found this so fun and enjoyed relating my life to the book.

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I had an authentic experience learning in high school when I was in 12th grade. We were supposed to pick a topic we were passionate about and research and do a presentation about it for the class. I really enjoyed it because first I was passionate about this issue on (elephant poaching) and second I got to learn more about it then present it to my class the ways that we could help to end this issue. This topic was a real world problem that was (is) happening, and I think that is why I was so passionate about this assignment. I was also able to educate my peers on this topic as well.
- Sam Guolo

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A time I had an authentic learning experience would be in 5th grade. We did lots of cool projects and I had a really amazing teacher that pushed us but still was very sweet and loving.

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I had a class in high school called floral design, and when prom season came around students were able to put in requests to the floral design students for corsages or boutonnieres. We would have to take there orders, read what they wanted / their color scheme and then arrange the flowers. Our teacher would help us, but definitely guided us and let us be creative more than told us what to create.

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I had a class in high school called floral design, and when prom season came around students were able to put in requests to the floral design students for corsages or boutonnieres. We would have to take there orders, read what they wanted / their color scheme and then arrange the flowers. Our teacher would help us, but definitely guided us and let us be creative more than told us what to create.

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The most authentic learning experience I had was in primary school during our Jamestown/Williamsburg unit. Visiting the settlements & talking with the "settlers" (actors) provided a sense of life to the unit/lessons. It wasn't just reading a book or completing a worksheet - it was hands-on and interactive. During this unit, my school created stations around the building where we made old-fashion dip candles, poked holes in canned lids to create images, & created a yarn doll. These activities represented activities that settlers in Jamestown/Williamsburg often participated in; these activities provided a real-life connection between the lessons and the true Jamestown/Williamsburg settlements!
-Samantha Gibson

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Hello!
I must admit that during my K-12 education I did not experience PBLs as such. Maybe that is why I find them a bit intimidating for me. My "PBLs" happened mostly during my scouting activities and event planning. With a group of scouts we needed to prepare maps (topography), plan a budget, design posters and flyers, write a grant application, secure accommodation and meals for the participants. All of these steps lead to the event. I felt really motivated because there was an end-goal, a tangible outcome - the event and happy participants. I realize that elementary school PBLs are something at a much smaller scale, but the resemblance is there. The students get to plan and complete the steps and them enjoy the final products. It is very relevant for them and based in their community.

- Ania

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The most authentic experience I had during my K-12 education was during my Junior year of high school and in English class we were reading The Great Gatsby. We spent time reading the book together in class and having tons of different discussions while reading. When we finished reading the book, we were all assigned different characters to write a eulogy for Jay Gatsby's "memorial service" where we all had to present our eulogies while dressed up as our character. The whole class got really into it!

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It's a challenge for me to think about my authentic learning experiences because I either cannot remember or I didn't really do PBLs. I used to go to this summer program called Music and the Arts and that felt very authentic. Everyone who was there was truly passionate about whatever they were doing- Dancers, artists, drama, music, etc. Everyone in the program was taking some kind of history class to study their craft, a small group instruction, large group instruction, and at the end of the program we all came together to put on a huge musical that everyone participated in.

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We planted a garden and had to research how to make it and take care of it.
Olivia L

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I remember in third grade we learned about rural, suburban, and urban communities. Our teacher used the back wall and we created those communities by constructing homes, businesses, farms, etc. It was a fun class project that allowed us to get a visual representation of what these different communities look like but was created as a class.