Fix the Fridge!
By:  Tina Ryan

Project at a Glance :

This project is designed to connect my classroom to our community by allowing my students to help a local business with a BIG problem. We are partnering with our local Family Fare. The managers of the store brainstormed one of their largest problems. It is that their refrigeration systems keep breaking down, which leads to BIG problems with food safety. Their systems are old, and they want our class to help think of solutions when this happens on a regular basis. This project will take approximately 2-3 weeks. 

Driving Question:

How can we help our local grocery store keep their food cold and safe when their refrigeration system keeps breaking?

Standards:

• Productive Teamwork
• Out of the box thinking
• Idea enhancement and improvement

Team / Culture Building:

• Students will work in groups of 4-5.
• Inner Heroes
• 6 Word Memoir
• Postcards of a dream vacation
• Lockbox/Puzzle Challenge ​

Team building activities

Entry Event:

• The students walked across the street to the local Family Fare. We got a tour and learned more about their "big problem"

We partnered with Family Fare. Ms. Dawn (store manager) helped get our driving question

Stakeholders:

• Store Manager
• Store Employees
• Customers 

Empathy Building:

• Stakeholders Map
• Empathy Map ​

• From their Empathy map, students got to think about how each person would feel about the problem

Inquiry / Need to Knows:

• Interviewed the store manager
• Students also interviewed a store associate​

Gaining Insights:

• Students made a Stakeholders map and wrote interview questions.

Incubation:

• Idea Quota​​

• Saturate and Group
• Subtract Something
• Dot Voting​​

 Checking in:

• Trios will meet with other trios to compare ideas

• Talking Chip
• Fireside Chat
• Pluses and Deltas
• Think-Pair-Share

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Solution Building:

• Students researched about each of their ideas using the NUF Test​​

Critique and Revision: 

• Pair each trio with another trio to work together in the final stages. 
• Students practiced their Elevator Pitches to other 3rd grade teachers to get feedback 

Working on pitches to present to Ms. Dawn at Family Fare

Authentic Audience:

• Store Manager
• Store Employees

Solution Examples:

• "Cheap Chillin": the store should purchase "cheaper" home-type refrigerators to put in the back room to have for emergencies to save food.​

• "Night Manager": the store should hire a night manager to watch over the refrigeration systems. To spend time wisely, they can do other store duties. ​

• "Pebbles Protects the Popsicles": a robot called "Pebbles" can check on and fix refrigerators.
• "Keyes of the Night": hire a mechanic from Keyes to be a store employee who would be available to fix refrigeration when/if it breaks.

Click here for teacher's full plan.
Reflection and Feedback:

• A rubric for the authentic audience to be used during the Gallery Walk
• Students shared positives and negatives from their PBL experience
• "When can we do it again" ~quote from student
• "Are there more problems Family Fare has that we can fix?" ~ quote from student

Ms. Dawn gave feedback to each group

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

Meet the Educator:
Tina Ryan is in her 23rd year of teaching. She teaches third grade at Sandy Hill in Jenison and has been incorporating PBL in the classroom for the last 5 years. 
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          "PBL brings excitement and a passion for learning, collaborating, and sharing ideas to students and teachers in the classroom."