Kindergartners Caring for the Environment 
​                                                                                        By:  Courtney Overway

Project at a Glance :

This project introduces Kindergarten students to caring for their environment; while exploring science, social studies, and literacy standards.  (Kindergarten - 2 week project).
       
Driving Question:

​How can we take care of the environment and inspire others to help us?​             

Standards:

• ELE Science Stds:  K-2-ETSI-1 & K-2-ETS1-2
• ELE ELA Stds:  RF.K.1 & 3, W.K.2, SLK 1, 4, 5, & 6

Team / Culture Building:

• ​Hopes/Fear/Norms
• Look at the Why? Why should we care about the enviornment? Why should we care about the trash on our playground or in Duncan Woods?
• Creative DNA protocol to put the students into teams, partner students with their 4th grade buddy to complete this activity.

Entry Event:

• The entry event is going Geocaching around our school. Students  will also pick up litter near the geocache.  This will allow the children to see the amount of trash, in particular, after the snow melts near our school and in Duncan Woods which is a short walk from our school.​

Stakeholders:

• Teachers
• Students
• Parents
• Community members
• Custodial and maintenance staff

Empathy Building:

• Empathy Map - what would we want the students to look, say, do, & think after this project? 
• Create a Pain and Gains chart

• Stakeholder Map

Inquiry / Need to Knows:

• Show a video of plastic in Lake Michigan
• Partner with GVSU Groundswell and Great Lakes Alliance to secure a grant for beach clean up​

• Interviews with other students/grades, custodial, mainetence, principal, other teachers, possibly if we work with the 4th graders they could bring this out to our community to interview city manager, city operations which is ahead of the city parks etc.
• Invite experts in to share their knowledge of environmental issues.

Incubation:

•  During math talks we are encouraged to tell how we got to the answer which helps the kindergarten students to think about their thinking (metacognition) which is a very new skill to them. Introduce them to something concrete like math prior to brainstorming solution ideas. 
• Think - Pair - Share
• Find ways to brainstorm while moving
• Idea Quota with the 4th graders - using Stormboard, then group ideas into categories.

• Subtracting something (if they need more outside the box ideas after their solutions)
• Anti-Problem...What if we didn’t have trash cans?​

• How would (Jimmy Johns solve this?) (They are freaky fast).

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Solution Building:

• Teacher will organize the ideas for each small group and after the small group has chosen their top ideas. 
• Conduct the NUF Test within each group

Critique and Revision: 

•  Small groups will do a poster session with warm/cool feedback based on their NUF test results.
• Followed by Dot Voting - prior have to write the solution numbers down so it is not a popularity contest!

Authentic Audience:

• Students
• Teachers
• Principal, 
• Support staff such as custodians

Final Presentation:

• The class will  make a couple of class books to report our findings to the authentic audience and in turn, hopefully motivating students to take better care of the playground and environment. 

Click here for teacher's full plan.

​Reflection and Feedback:
Contact teacher for rubric/reflection information.

Click here for the teachers Journey through PBL on Padlet . . .

Meet the Educator:
Courtney Overway teaches kindergarten at Mary A White Elementary, Grand Haven Public Schools. 

     "PBL and Design Thinking put the children in the driver's seats and we know that you learn the work by DOING the work so they are learning without "knowing".  It's the same thing with play, so much learning happens for Early Childhood grades within play and they haven't a clue.  It's the best way for the children to learn - by initiating it, exploring, and experiencing the world that is around them.  It is so much more fun to be in a classroom of students who are leading their learning rather than pulling them through the mud and struggling every step of the way."