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PBL Path and Whitney Plantation

As a part of the collaboration between PBL Path, Whitney Plantation and Park Elementary School in Baton Rouge, LA, the teachers in this video explored the power of place based learning. As teachers experienced the plantation through the perspective of those enslaved their task was to seek out artifacts, photographs, narratives, quotes, and facts from the expedition to help them as they explored the Essential Question: How do we leverage the rich resources of the Whitney Plantation to build robust projects for our students?
With these artifacts, teachers then designed a project that incorporated the legacies of slavery  to incorporate storytelling components and connect students to their history, with authentic community products and calls to action.
PBL Path was fortunate to be able to document this experience. Join us as we dive deeper into the PBL Path partnership with the Whitney Plantation and teachers in local schools.

Power of Place - Whitney Plantation Museum

“Education is reparation.  This is how we amend these prejudices.”
- Dr. Ibrahima Seck, Director of Research for the Whitney Plantation Museum

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The Whitney Plantation, a museum on the grounds of a former plantation, provides a powerful learning environment for educators and students to explore first-hand the history of slavery in the US and, specifically, within Louisiana. This understanding builds historical context and sheds light on the impact of systemic racism across many institutions today. Through a partnership with PBL Path, teachers from Park Elementary in Baton Rouge engaged in a daylong expedition and professional development session to uncover the narratives of those enslaved while looking for project ideas to shape the future narrative of their students and communities.

See how teachers used this experience to design projects aligned to PBL Path’s Design Principles and content standards.

Please contact PBL Path if interested in setting up an expedition and professional development to design powerful Place Based Learning Projects using the resources at the Whitney Plantation. Also, check out www.whitneyplantation.com for resources dedicated to educating students about slavery in the United States.

Picturing the Possibilities

We had the opportunity to create a video series, entitled “Picturing the Possibilities – What Powerful Teaching and Learning Can Look Like”.  This series embarked on a mission to bring images that embody what we hoped would become common rather than rare instances of powerful teaching and learning.  We hope these images help you to think about what shifts in your own practice you might make to support the implementation of Place Based Learning in your classroom, school and community. Each video illustrates one or more of our Design Principles for Place Based Learning.

Striving for Social Justice - Humanities

Codman Academy Charter Public School, Dorchester, MA
Teacher: Aaron Schildkrout 

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Codman’s educational philosophy is guided by expeditionary learning with equal emphasis on intellectual and character development. Codman prides itself on the many partnerships it has with community organizations, including Huntington Theatre, an ongoing collaborative community partnership that supports their drama-based humanities program. In this video, students study social justice and injustice in their own lives and the global community, conduct oral histories with local community members who experienced first hand injustice in their lives and translate their understanding into a dramatic performance presented at Boston’s Huntington Theatre.

Restoring the Land – Integrated Science

North Mason High School, Belfair, WA
Teacher: Karen Lippy

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Karen Lippy designed the Hood Canal Institute at North Mason High School. The Hood Canal Institute was an Integrated Science Program that focused on community service learning and place based learning. It consisted of students working collaboratively with community partners on a variety of projects to better their community while learning required science content. In this video you will travel to the Olympic Peninsula to discover how one teacher’s effort to make science a community-connected experience using the wetlands, streams and forests along the inland waters of Washington State as the classroom. See how students collect sophisticated data to help their community partners restore wetlands, monitor water quality, and raise public awareness regarding the rich and fragile environment in their backyard.

Making Community Connections:  A First Hand Look at Immigration Policy and Social Action Projects – English and U.S History

Clover Park High School – Crossroads Academy, Tacoma, WA
Teacher: Kathy Hanawalt

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In this video see students from an English/US History class attempt to answer the question, “What is the American Dream?” They interviewed immigrants working at an apple packing facility to capture their immigration story and what they believe is the American dream. Students published a book with the narratives of the immigrant’s stories of how they came to the U.S. and presented the stories to the local community. In Kathy’s Senior English class, she required that her students’ culminating projects have a clear focus on social action within the community. See how her students stepped up to the challenge, creating lasting community partnerships and leaving their legacy to make their community a better place.

Candid Conversations - Having the Hard Conversations Around Equity

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Embedding culture asks us to learn about the students we serve. Unpacking equity requires teachers to examine their assumptions about culture and the students they serve, as well as taking a deep dive into white privilege.

This video highlights ongoing candid conversations educators had when they put equity on the agenda. They grapple with questions of race and class, privilege and oppression and the impact these beliefs and assumptions may have on a school’s collective cultural practices. They discuss what it means to have high expectations for all students. You will also hear school leaders talk about what it means to lead for equity.

This video can help lay the groundwork for how to begin the discourse of equity at your school and in your own teaching practice.

Connecting Math to a Community Concept

Codman Academy Charter Public School, Dorchester, MA
Teacher:  Karen Crounse

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In this video, see how teacher Karen Crounse connects slopes and linear equations to a safety issue in their community. Students analyzed the safety of over 200 public staircases by comparing building codes and their collected data. They discovered that some were not up to code. Making their data public helped to draw attention to this problem facing their community.

Integrating Curriculum Around Social Justice – English and U.S. History

Humanitas Academy, Bell High School, Los Angeles, CA
Teachers: Megan Falls, Mike Berger, Lee Kimura and Amanda Paul

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Humanitas Academy proves that even a large, comprehensive high school can create connected learning experiences for students and allow teachers to integrate and collaborate with colleagues in meaningful ways, putting them on the path to planning for project based learning. In this video you will see how teams of teachers intentionally integrate their content areas to create authentic explorations around the themes of social justice, human rights and ethics. They bring democracy to life by asking students, “How do ethics and morals contribute to the choices made by individuals, community and society?” Teachers help students make connections to the content by asking them to explore ethical issues to help them understand the choices they make in their own lives.

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Student Products

A New War, A New World: Today

Medicine Wheel Academy, Spokane, WA

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This is a compelling and poignant video produced by a group of students at Medicine Wheel Academy in Spokane, WA. The video is based on a poem written by a student. It calls Native youth to action by asking them to embrace and learn about their traditional ways of knowing. The poem was written in an English class and was a group effort to produce the video. The video asks Native students to consider ways to move positively into the future while honoring their past.

More Than That

Todd County High School, Mission, SD

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This video was produced by a group of Lakota students at South Dakota’s Rosebud Sioux Reservation Todd County High School to challenge stereotypes about Native Americans. The video was made in response to “20/20” News Magazine report that focused on issues of poverty, alcoholism, drug addiction and violence on the nearby Pine Ridge Indian Reservation perpetuating many of the stereotypes facing Native Americans today. It prompted the students to take action. The title of their video, “More Than That”, contradicts the stereotypes and says, “we are much more than that.” To date “More Than That” has received over a million hits on YouTube. Students were invited to speak at the National Association of Federally Impacted Schools conference in 2011 where they spoke about why they produced the video. The project took place in their English and Video Production class.

To Whom it May Concern – Global Problems Need Local Solutions

Los Amigos Technology Academy, Tucson, AZ
Teacher:  Zaida Meraz

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This group of 6th grade students at Los Amigos Technology Academy in Tucson, AZ embarked on a project to learn about global issues and how they could take action on a local level. They wanted to increase public awareness and share specific actions individuals and groups could take to help alleviate the problems. Each student selected an issue of importance to them and researched the issue, culminating with a research report that outlined the problem, solutions being acted on and their analysis of what local citizens could do to help solve this issue locally. Students’ created collaborative teams based on common global issues and created an action plan. Their culminating product is a PSA they created, entitled, “To Whom it May Concern – Global Problems Need Local Solutions”. The final product is a compelling and poignant call to action.

To date students have been asked to present their product to the Mayor of Tucson and the City Council, as well as the Rotary Club. They also hope organizations working on many of the global issues highlighted in their PSA will consider including a link on their websites to their YouTube channel.

People Like Me

Kaimuki High School, Honolulu HI

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In a school that serves eleven different ethnicities, of which 39% are Pacific Islanders and where seven out of ten students live in poverty, college doesn't seem a viable option for these first-generation college students. Whether it is the past and current narratives, beliefs and perspectives that are holding students back or many of the college barriers that first-generation students face, a group of students at Kaimuki High School are changing the narrative about their lives after high school and beyond. “People Like Me” was a project that evolved out of Bill Sprawling’s AVID class at Kiamuki High School in Honolulu, HI. Sherry Ann Wright, AVID tutor filmed and edited the adaptation from a script written by Ben Solomon and Produced by Walk Stop Media. Students hoped to reach their classmates urging them to help change the story by transforming their understanding of possibilities and opportunities.