Kauri 89's Project Based Learning

Project-based learning is an approach to classroom teaching and learning that is designed to engage students in investigation of authentic problems. We looked at three topics - FUN in the bush, SAFE in the bush and LOST in the bush.  

First we created as many questions as we could around these topics using question starters on flash cards - Where, why, what, when, who, which and how.  The children then identified one broad question that interested them.  We identified which children had similar broad questions and they got together and brainstormed everything they knew already about the broad question.  

Jack Craft and Sam McGrath wanted to know how they could save the bush.  They had some great prior knowledge which included 1080 poison, information about DOC, Gondwana land and they knew that some people don't care about animals and the bush of NZ, these people only care about money.   The boys discussed their prior knowledge and they came up with some more questions - Why do people make houses out of wood?  Why are people dropping 1080 poison in the bush and are there any animals that are damaging kiwis. They then decided to plan and design a trap that would catch predators that are a threat to kiwis.  They created a fabulous prototype.  Their creation had a scanner on it that could pick up whether the animal walking over the scanner was a predator or an animal that we would want to keep alive such as a kiwi.  If the footprint belonged to a predator the trap would spring into action.  They also managed to camouflage their creation.  Good job boys!