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Authentic audiences and work that lives on

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Authentic audiences and work that lives on

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Example of high school project on the topic of historical activists

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High school science project travels to Tanzania

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The DNA of Learning: Teens Tackle Animal Poaching Through Genetics

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video detailing one strategy

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Staying On Task During Project-Based Learning | Edutopia

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Brief daily meetings give students working in groups the structure to hold each other accountable on long-term projects.

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How to explore issues that matter

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Project-Based Learning (PBL)

The open-ended work in project-based learning can help students explore issues that matter to them.

"Justice for Ahmaud Arbery," by Melanie Nguyen. Like the images below, this was created by one of the author's students.

My objective, as an educator, is always to enable students to discover themselves-and, in doing so, help them gain the knowledge, skills, and courage to understand and improve the human condition. I believe that almost all social problems can be traced to a lack of education and empathy, and that 21st-century educators must work to combat ignorance and injustice.

With this objective in mind, I recently designed a project focusing on racial and social justice called "Light Up the Darkness." During the school year, my students studied history and literature through the lens of injustice. They learned about topics ranging from medieval feudalism as a system of oppression to the work of Charles Dickens as a literary protest against economic injustice. In the spring, we brought these themes together, diving deep into student passions through project-based learning.

Then, along with the lockdown for Covid-19, came the killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd. If students hadn't previously felt an urgent reason to care about racial and social justice, they did now.

Laying the Groundwork

I decided to give my students options: work independently or with a partner. They could study race, gender identity, Islamophobia, sexism, class struggle, immigration, homelessness, or mass incarceration; they could also propose any other topic related to oppression and inequity. We spent the first week exploring issues and resources and discussing ideas.

Then students chose topics, articles, poems, songs, documentaries, and books. Some students chose fiction: The Hate U Give, , Internment, and Dear Martin were popular. Most chose nonfiction: , , and were the top choices. They read newspaper articles and watched TED Talks and Vice News reports, as well as many powerful documentaries, including True Justice and Girl Rising. They read " The New Colossus" and listened to Tupac.

As they learned, they talked. They talked with friends and classmates, with me and their families, and with community members. Some attended protests. What might have been a trivial "What did you learn in school today?" turned into a powerful discourse on injustice and the human condition.

Learning From Masters

"Light Up the Darkness" has four key products: a two-voice poem, persuasive art, a book project, and an argumentative essay.
Ariel Smethurst-Jones
Two-voice poems: Some students were already familiar with two-voice poems, but as an introduction we watched a Common Grounds slam poem performed by Amina Iro and Hannah Halpern and read " Two Women," a poem by an anonymous woman caught in political chaos in Chile in the 1970s. Students gained a deeper understanding of experiential angles and ideological nuances.

Persuasive art: Next, students worked on propaganda art, which we defined as work meant to be persuasive and influential; it's biased but not necessarily misleading. They analyzed works by Shepard Fairey and other historical and contemporary grassroots artists. Their work took many forms, but the consistent theme was social justice. Some students created persuasive infographics or protest posters, but most created fine art that focuses on action. This ranged from ending mass incarceration to empowering young women. Some students used current movements and events, while others relied on their newfound critical understanding of history.

Open-ended book project: Later, students completed an open-ended book project, with a menu of options available to guide their creativity. Some wrote and performed raps, others baked cakes; some took photos at protests, and others created intricate Lego builds. I wanted students to feel free to authentically express their learning, specifically around their book choice. By this point, students were taking complete ownership of the project.
Adrianna Shinn
Argumentative essay: The final product was a 1,000-plus-word argumentative essay with a thesis, citations, counter-argument, and rebuttal. Rigorous writing assignments can be challenging for young teens, but as I worked with each student on their essays, I witnessed something amazing: Their sense of justice and empathy, along with their new knowledge, skills, and courage, was on full display.

Now, with the tables turned, it was my time to learn, and I did. One essay used research to show that mass incarceration was not the result of a spike in criminality but instead the product of systemic racism. Another showed that even the most well-intended "colorblindness" does nothing to expedite our progress toward racial justice.

This project had a beginning, but it never truly ended. My students and their families told me that they didn't think this type of learning was possible at school. They said the work felt raw and relevant.

What did I learn? I learned that justice is a transgenerational struggle. I learned that silent classrooms are compliant classrooms. I learned about the importance of allowing students to confront racial and social injustice. I learned that young people continue to offer unwavering hope.

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Exploring Social Justice Issues Through PBL

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The open-ended work in project-based learning can help students explore issues that matter to them.

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Combining Project Based Learning and Service

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Combining Project Based Learning and Service

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Your "product" doesn't have to be an object

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Tips for Combining Project-Based and Service Learning

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Help your students find a larger sense of purpose in their schoolwork even as they achieve educational goals.

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Connecting with Spanish speaking students around the world

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At High Tech High, teachers co-design semester-long projects for and with their students. Early last Spring, we shared spark ideas and passions in co-designing a project for this Fall, and we realized we had common ground in our love for travel and ethnic studies.

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Students put a historical revolution on trial to determine it's effectiveness

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In this project, students put historical revolutions on "trial" to determine their effectiveness in improving the conditions of the people. After engaging in a simulation of a dramatically inequitable society, students reflect on the reasons why revolutions begin. Teams research revolutions from key moments throughout history (e.g., the Russian, Haitian, Cuban, or French revolutions) to understand the conditions and impacts of each revolution. Students are then assigned to take sides and roles↣-attorneys or witnesses for the prosecution or defense-in a mock trial for their focus revolution. Teams must work together to gather evidence and build cases to show the ways in which their assigned revolution did or did not help improve conditions for the citizens of the country they are studying.

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In this project, students put historical revolutions on "trial" to determine their effectiveness in improving the conditions of the people. After engaging in a simulation of a dramatically inequitable society, students reflect on the reasons why revolutions begin.

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What can international media tell us about what is really happening in the world?

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Students use the target language to explore a significant theme in current events (possible themes include migration and refugees, environmental sustainability, economic justice, public health, or human rights). They engage with authentic news sources in the target language-podcasts, television shows, magazines, newspapers, and blogs. Each team focuses on a different geographic region or issue connected to the class theme and produces a podcast segment or news report that describes and analyzes the issue/situation in an engaging format for teen native speakers of the target language.

Unless otherwise noted, all activities occur in the target language, with varying degrees of scaffolding.

Log in to learn more about this project

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Students use the target language to explore a significant theme in current events (possible themes include migration and refugees, environmental sustainability, economic justice, public health, or human rights). They engage with authentic news sources in the target language-podcasts, television shows, magazines, newspapers, and blogs.

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Urban planning that impacts individuals

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Through the lens of the city, this Humanities & Spanish project examined fundamental topics such as identity, diversity, justice, and action, with a particular focus on segregation. Students explored how the city can drive positive societal change as well as exacerbate damaging negative stereotypes. Looking at the complex relationship between the city, transportation, and social mobility, students made time lapses of their school commute, recorded interviews and observations about their neighborhood, and ultimately proposed solutions to identified neighborhood issues in front of a panel of urban planners.

In the first few weeks, students made time lapses of their school commute, highlighting the great distances some students travel, and exposing San Diego's rich variety of neighborhoods. Most students used the free LapseIt app to capture their journey, then edited in iMovie. To better understand their neighborhood, students interviewed locals, asking about the history of the area and their hopes for the future.

Students formed groups, selected neighborhoods with the most intriguing issues and conducted additional research - recording more interviews and observations. Students conducted hours of fieldwork, making several visits to their neighborhoods. Students also went on a series of field trips, broadening their understanding of community issues and the importance of urban planning. These trips included visits to Chicano Park, The Central Library, San Diego History Museum, Balboa Park.

Students then formulated solutions to their identified neighborhood issues and pitched proposals to a panel of urban planners, of whom all had presented ideas to students throughout the semester. Students covered a variety of topics, including environmental and psychological impact, funding and costs, political and professional sources, transit solutions, and 5, 10, and 20 year plans.

Finally, students turned their neighborhood solution pitches into short-films, shown on exhibition night. Students created posters, detailing their proposed solutions. These posters were displayed on exhibition night, prompting rich discussions with guests.

Traveling Without Moving was a project that gave students an opportunity to look deeper into our neighborhoods. Though we spend endless hours in our own neighborhood, we still pass by things on our typical drives and journeys within the area that are not familiar to us. The objective of our project was to get out of our comfort zone and explore interesting parts of San Diego's neighborhoods. That's why we started this project with a time lapse displaying our school commute, complete with Spanish subtitles, pointing out things that may look familiar to us, but are strangely unique to others.

We continued to integrate Spanish into our project by interviewing native Spanish speakers around San Diego. We interviewed them to get their perspective on their neighborhood and how they feel about living there, owning a business there, or just working there.

From there, we proposed a synthesized need, based on our neighborhood ethnographic research and the feedback from the interviews. We proposed improvements that could be made to each neighborhood based on the expressed needs of the locals. We chose 6 different neighborhoods that had the most captivating potential and started to formulate a plan to enhance them. We then created a blueprint of what we envisioned and presented it to city officials to take it to San Diego's streets!

We learned a lot about who we are where we live through this project. It showed us how different cultures have evolved throughout San Diego. We were so fortunate to visit some very diverse places throughout San Diego such as Chicano Park, Little Italy, The Spanish International House, San Diego History Museum, The San Diego Public Library and Old Town. We were able to take a deeper look into different cultures around San Diego. During our project, we saw the differences within each neighborhood and the similarities between the cultures. We enjoyed traveling around the city to some places we have never been. We saw another side of San Diego and interacted with different communities, gaining valuable perspective.

- Adhara and Gilli

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Through the lens of the city, this Humanities & Spanish project examined fundamental topics such as identity, diversity, justice, and action, with a particular focus on segregation. Students explored how the city can drive positive societal change as well as exacerbate damaging negative stereotypes.

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Audio interviews of people telling their stories are uploaded and saved in the Library of Congress

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Stories from people of all backgrounds and beliefs

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View an example of a student's project

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By: Cooper Ferguson, Paul Witt, and Maya Lewitt

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High school students helping release innocent prisoners

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In this episode, Alec talks to Mackenzie King, a teacher at High Tech High Chula Vista whose students are screening applications to the California Innocence Project from prisoners who say they were wrongfully convicted and want the Innocence Project to take their case.

Alec talked to Mackenzie about how she got the idea for the project, how she built a relationship with the California Innocence Project, and how she helps students to do professional-level work with the highest possible stakes. He also talked to two students, Sofia and Gavin, about what the project was like for them.

https://pinecast.com/listen/2fe29f47-ed66-4820-9991-e3303c53d860.mp3
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Stitcher Table of Contents
1:29 What the California Innocence Project does, and how XONR8 helps them

2:17 XONR8: the project in a nutshell

3:31 XONR8: Origins (how Mackenzie came up with the idea for it)

5:15 How XONR8 starts: deciphering autopsy reports

6:17 Gavin & Sofia on figuring out the autopsy reports

7:48 Step 2: the whole class looks at a case file together

8:23 Step 3: the students get assigned a real case file

9:38 How Mackenzie makes groups and decides how to assign cases

10:40 Gavin and Sofia on how it felt to get their case files

12:04 Structures for project-management within groups

12:58 Sofia and Gavin on how well their groups worked together

14:09 The low point of the project for Sofia and Gavin

15:43 The verdict that Gavin's group reached

16:07 The verdict that Sofia's group reached

16:54 Preparing to present to the Innocence Project lawyers

17:27 Giving the presentations

19:26 High Tech High students are better prepared and better presenters than the law students

20:13 Differentiating for kids who struggle with reading

20:59 The other part of the project: Reading Just Mercy by Brian Stevenson

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Project Essentials: in XONR8, 11th graders are helping to free wrongfully-convicted prisoners - High Tech High Unboxed

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In this episode, Alec talks to Mackenzie King, a teacher at High Tech High Chula Vista whose students are screening applications to the California Innocence Project from prisoners who say they were wrongfully convicted and want the Innocence Project to take their case. Alec talked to Mackenzie about how she got the idea for the ...