Bringing more people to our area and providing additional                                        opportunities for our local residents in the winter.
​                                                            By:  Rachel Minier 

Project at a Glance :

Third and fourth grade elementary students teamed up with a handful of local businesses, the Grand Haven city planner and event coordinator to plan how we can bring more people to our area in the winter. This question was added to the city’s monthly meeting agenda and our students created a number ideas including events, treasure hunts, and new restaurants.
       
Driving Question:

How can we bring more people to our area in the winter?           

Standards:

• 3-5 ETS1-2 Generate and compare multiple solutions to a problem based on how well they meet the criteria and constraints of the design problem.

Team / Culture Building:

• Students complete the Creative Sequence Assessment and divide groups of 4 by mixing up creative preferences. After teams are created,  spend the rest of the class time working through a lock box online at breakout.edu. ​​

​Entry Event:

• Students learn that the city planner added to their meeting agenda a discussion of how we can bring more people to our area in the winter.  The class discussed some of the things they typically do over winter holiday breaks.

Stakeholders:

• Children
• Parents
• Tourists
• Elderly community members
• Locals
• Families
• Teenagers

Empathy Building:

• Each group of students was assigned a stakeholder to complete anEmpathy Map for. They gave their person a name, age, occupation, list of hobbies, and place of residence.

Inquiry / Need to Knows:

• ​Students worked with their groups to write down everything they knew Grand Haven and Spring Lake events and activities. Then they wrote a list of places or activities they have been to elsewhere, but were unaware if it was in our area. 
• Students drafted questions for interviewing various people. 
• The teacher created a Padlet with the website for each sector we were interviewing; restaurants, hotels, retail, etc. then added a comparison of a similar sector from somewhere else. Students created a Venn diagram to compare the sector of our local area to a different city.​

Incubation:

• Students were given 10 minutes to write as many ideas as they could on sticky notes. The teacher encouraged students to think from the perspective of each of the people on the empathy maps, in addition to themselves. 
• Students used the Idea Quota protocol to brainstorm as many ideas, from all sectors, as thye could. Then teams grouped their ideas into “like ideas” to narrow down the ideas. The notes students took during the interview process helped them generate ideas.​​

Checking in:

•  The teacher checked in after each step to make sure students were on track to answer the driving question, as well as, gave them suggestions to enhance their first idea or steer their thinking more general to reach a larger population
• Students used the How Might We . . . strategy  for each stakeholder. They also referenced the Empathy Maps that were hung around the room. Each group presented the Empathy Map to the whole class so other groups could give suggestions of additions. ​

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Solution Building:

• After generating ideas using  the Idea Quota protocol students were grouped into categories, each team member got three dot stickers to vote on their top three ideas (Dot Voting).
• Following Dot Voting students completed the NUF Test for the winning ideas.  The top two ideas were then voted on again by a dot vote, this time each member got one vote.  

Critique and Revision: 

• The teacher listened to each groups ideas and gave them feedback to consider while making their poster to present to the class.  Asking  questions such as; how much might that cost and how could we raise money and could business team up to bring the idea to fruition. 
• Students created a poster to explain their idea to the rest of the class. The class then gave ideas of how they can improve their plan. This poster became their plan for creating/building.​

Authentic Audience:

• Grand Haven Area Chamber
• Village of Spring Lake
  
• YMCA
  
• MacKite
  
• Borr's shoes
  
• City of Grand Haven Planner
  
• Holiday Inn Spring Lake manager

Final Presentation:

• Students met with the audience over Zoom and each group took a few minutes to present their idea. The audience then gave feedback and asked questions to each group after their presentation. 
• Groups could present a commercial, poster, presentation, prototype, or any other idea they had to present during our Zoom call.​

Click here for teacher's full plan.

​Reflection and Feedback:

• The audience asked the teams questions about their ideas while providing feedback and concerns. There was not a specific rubric for them to follow.
• The teacher used the protocol; How might we _____for______? to get students to think about other stakeholders including the business owner. Students felt prepared to discuss the different perspectives while presenting.​

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

Meet the Educator:
Rachel Minier teaches STEM at Peach Plains and Robinson Elementary Schools in Grand Haven.

     "PBL allows students to use their engineering skills, and skills for success, that they have learned in STEM class, in a real world setting."​