Meeting the Needs of our Community
                                                     By:  Ashleigh Whitney

Project at a Glance :

This project introduces fourth grade students to a variety of Economics standards while exploring how creating and running a business works in the community that they live in.  4th grade Social Studies - 4-6 week project

Driving Question:

How can we design a business that will meet the needs of the Coopersville community?           

Standards:

• Market Economy Stds:  4 – E1.01, 4 – E1.0.2, 4 – E1.0.3, 4 – E1.0.4, 4 – E1.0.6, and 4 – E1.0.7 
• ELA:  SL.4.1, & SL.4.4, 
• Skills4Success:  Critical Thinking/Problem Solving and Ethical Citizenship & Accountability 

Team / Culture Building:

• Hopes, Fears, and Norms Activity
• Model what a successful team looks like
• Creative Sequence Scenario Assessment to help create groups.

Entry Event:

• Interest survey - What do citizens of Coopersville need as a business in town? 
• Banzai Junior - Run your own business simulation
• Shark Tank for kids - videos
• Invite parents who are business owners to come in and speak
• Walk to downtown Coopersville to visit the local businesses​.

Stakeholders:

• Business owners in the community
• Community members of all ages (think in terms of elders, adults, teenagers, and kids).

Empathy Building:

• Jigsaw activity of Empathy Maps, each group will take a different stakeholder and share out.

Inquiry / Need to Knows:

• Stakeholder Map activity as a whole group

• ​Students will interview members of the Coopersville community (parents, siblings, grandparents) to determine what citizens would like to see in the community as a business. This could also be sent out as a Google Form if teaching online.  *Refer to AEIOU protocol on slide 6 to help generate questions.
• Students will participate in a Need to Know chalk talk. They will use different color markers/sticky notes to differentiate the “knows” and “need to knows.”  Provide a variety topics on chart paper to help guide students in the right direction with their questioning, such as competition in the city, money/price, goods/services people need​.​

Incubation:

• Model how to  brainstorm by thinking aloud about a certain topic in front of the whole group.
• Practice brainstorming protocols before even starting the PBL project.
• Walk downtown Coopersville to collect ideas in a notebook - this may help them come prepared when they brainstorm as a group.
• Rip, Slap, Pass protocol​

• Brainwriting ​activity - using Stormboard​

• Anti problem protocol

---

Solution Building:

•  Students will take all of their ideas from the Incubation activity and complete the Affinity Mapping  **Save all sticky notes from Incubation activity in envelopes.
• After the Affinity Mapping, students will complete an Elevator Pitch. *Teacher will model this ahead of time. Possibly give a fill in the blank speech or cheat sheet to guide students.
• Each student will “pitch” an idea they like most to the rest of the group members, or each group will “pitch” their ideas to another group.
• NUF Test

Critique and Revision: 

•  Students will do the Name Your Idea strategy to finalize their business idea for downtown Coopersville.
• Students will participate in a Gallery Walk to gather feedback. Teacher will model what constructive feedback looks like. ​

Authentic Audience:

• Business owners in the community
• Community members of all ages (think in terms of elders, adults, teenagers, and kids).
  

Final Presentation:

• Students will create a Shark Tank pitch with their authentic audience. They may do so via Google Slides, Poster Board, and prototypes if applicable. The audience will be members of the Coopersville Community of various ages.
  
• Students will create a pitch as to which business should be added to downtown Coopersville. They may choose how they want to present their pitch (using technology, posters, prototypes, etc.) but must follow the rubric.

Click here for teacher's full plan.

​Reflection and Feedback:

• Students will create a rubric with the teacher for assessing their final project. The rubric will be a combination of the Skills4Success and ELA/Economics Stds.​

Click here for the  teacher's Journey through PBL on Padlet.

Meet the Educator:
Ashleigh Whitney teaches 4th grade at Coopersville South Elementary.  

​     "I am passionate about PBL and Design Thinking because it allows students to apply skills into a real world setting, more importantly, their community."