Why is it important to remember the past?

These were our leading questions for PBL. In this PBL we worked with different classes to study ancient civilizations. The world history class approached this more literally as we were studying different ancient civilizations from the past. I wasn't able to participate because of the math class I took this year, but the Geometry class built geometric structures based on buildings of ancient civilizations. The groups in World Lit, however, were able to use these structures as part of the background in the plays we made based on the Ancient Civilization we were given. My group was assigned to Ancient Greece.

In this PBL project, the goal was to understand how we can create a sustainable and inclusive food system that promotes cultural diversity, health and social equity. The 10th grade core classes collaborated by having different projects based on this PBL. In World Literature we created recipes in groups and described how they connected to our identity. At least one of the ingredients had to be related to the Colombian Exchange, the mix of foods, culture, and disease between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. This was a topic that we briefly covered in AP World History. We had a cook off based on ingredients from our assigned Hemispheres. In addition, we connected this conversation about food and cultural identity to Chemistry by identifying ionic and covalent bonds in the recipe of the dishes that we made. In art, we studied ceramics and how they connect uniquely to various cultures and their foods.

In this PBL we studied how multiple factors such as geopolitical tensions, resource scarcity, economic disparity, and ideological divides can escalate and turn into global conflicts. We found that via conflict, there is transformation and resilience. Picasso's Guernica is an example of resilience and innovation through conflict, specifically during WWII. This is why we recreated the piece in art class based on a conflict of our choice. Chemistry was incorporated because we mixed substances together to create green paint for our Guernica piece because it was supposed to be monochromatic. Additionally, in World Literature we did a series of assignments including a propaganda piece that we created, an essay based on the propaganda, and a PSA video communicating the dire situation of another conflict of our choice.