2.2 STEM or STEAM Curriculum: Project-Based Learning (PBL)

At South Effingham Middle School, we integrate the Georgia Standards of Excellence and pacing guides provided by the Effingham County Board of Education, as well as an offering of advanced content courses and STEA2M supporting experiences.  Our curriculum is enhanced and accelerated by embedding the 4Cs in (Communication, Collaboration, Creativity, and Critical Thinking) throughout the year.  During weekly professional learning community meetings, teachers collaborate to create real-world, interdisciplinary learning experiences to benefit all students who attend SEMS. 

South Effingham Middle School teachers are given weekly scheduled planning time to develop new and exciting STEA²M experiences for our students. These collaborative opportunities begin with our weekly Professional Learning Community (PLC) which includes Data Team meetings followed by STEA2M planning and/or professional development led by our STEA2M Coach and other building leaders. Grade level teachers consistently plan together, so that lessons are integrated across the curriculum and are uniform to create equitable learning opportunities for all students. Teachers have had many opportunities for professional development with presenters like Sally Creel, Cobb County STEM Coordinator, and Allison Morgan, GADOE - STEM/STEAM Program Specialist, and conferences that can provide STEA2M resources.

At the beginning of the school year teachers are provided with "Procedures and Expectations" that allow all teachers to understand the plan in place to make our STEA²M program successful. We focus on making our STEA²M program student and community-centered. Many of the aspects of our STEA²M culture are integrated with grade-specific PBLs and interdisciplinary lessons throughout the year. As part of this plan, we invite our business partners to join in classroom lessons, STEA²M Extension projects, and Honey Ridge activities that support subject-based learning targets and standards. Students are also required to document their creativity in their STEA²M journals from the start with the ask phase to the analyze and communicate stages. 

As a rural school district, South Effingham Middle School incorporates Honey Ridge Agricenter into our curriculum as our students can relate to real-world problem-solving and work with local community partners. Honey Ridge Agricenter is a 324-acre working farm owned and operated by the Effingham County School District.  The Agricenter is located in Guyton, GA. The farm, formally known as Honey Ridge Plantation, was acquired by the school district in the Fall of 2016 and has become one of the focal points of Agriculture Education in the county. The Agricenter is used for numerous events including the Fall Farm Festival and Spring Fling Farm Day, as well as STEM/STEAM activities. The farm is home to many show animals that allow students to participate in Supervised Agriculture Experience Programs. 

Sixth-grade students at South Effingham Middle worked on solving a real-world and standards-based community problem that centers around Honey Ridge Agricenter and maintaining a successful pumpkin patch. The long-term PBL project worked in the classroom through multiple interdisciplinary lessons that incorporated math, science, CTAE content, and the engineering design process. One of these lessons came through in the science and math classrooms where students used science standards involving density and math standards of measurements to calculate the density and circumference of a pumpkin. This led to student-driven conversation and critical thinking for all students to learn how to sustain and maintain a pumpkin patch. 

In 6th grade, SEMS students are answering the driving question, "How can we create and maintain a successful pumpkin patch at Honey Ridge Agricenter, marketing our products to consumers attending the Honey Ridge Fall Festival?" Our school has partnered with the University of Georgia and they have been in communication about our school's pumpkin patch. In the Fall of 2021, Cecilia McGregor, who works at the University of Georgia's Department of Horticulture donated 1,000 bulldog pumpkin seeds for our SEMS students. Once the pumpkin seeds were acquired, teachers planned a PBL around the growing concern at the farm. Once given the driving question, sixth-grade students brainstormed by thinking of problems and solutions to what could happen at the farm when the pumpkin seeds were planted.

Using prior knowledge, our students knew that the last round of crops produced at Honey Ridge were destroyed by the deer at the farm. Using their research skills and creativity, our sixth-grade students have taken the lead in developing sustainable farming and crop-growing areas out at Honey Ridge Agricenter including a barrier to keep the deer away from the pumpkin patch. The rigor and advancements were scattered throughout the PBL in the instructional lessons led by the teachers that were student-centered such as recipe making, and soil testing. After research, students brought up the solution that designing a protective barrier to keep deer away from the pumpkin patch would be the best solution. After researching pumpkin growing and the best barrier options, our students designed and developed a protective barrier they wanted to see built out at Honey Ridge.

HFF Services, a community partner who was involved with the fencing solutions with our students, helped with the materials for our students to design their fences. The students developed, researched, and modeled fencing options. Students presented their ideas to their classmates and the best designs were chosen to move into more research. After critical thinking and some tweaking all led by our students and Blake Carter, from the University of Georgia Extension Office, our students had a fence built at Honey Ridge Agricenter. Students continue to brainstorm ideas and solutions about what could be maintained and/or adjusted at Honey Ridge Agriculture to continue answering the driving question. 

Seventh-grade students answered the driving question, "How can a comparison of sustainable agriculture (ex. stocks) inspire us to design a productive and environmentally responsible farm that contributes to the well-being of our community?"

Seventh-grade students are working toward the learning target of entrepreneurship and how various businesses can solve problems at Honey Ridge Agricenter.  Students will collaboratively make a scale model of a farm based on market research and information provided by local farmers in Effingham County, Georgia. The model they make will be scaled by students at the Effingham County School District's Agricenter: Honey Ridge. Students will tour Honey Ridge, observing its layout and hearing from local farmers about best farming practices from several different levels and fields of expertise.  

Seventh-grade students are working towards answering the driving question, "How do we educate our community about the water crisis in Africa to offer support?" The driving question has been integrated into weekly and daily classroom lessons that align with the Georgia State standards in math, science, ELA, and social studies with a relationship to CTAE content.  In math, students used map scales to determine the distance and length of water sources to major locations and used proportional relationships to calculate walking distance. Science was integrated by describing how consuming polluted water can lead to certain diseases in the human body, students used a microscope to identify bacteria and pollution in the water and compared the different types of bacteria in the water. Students also designed and built a water filtration system to understand why and how water should be cleaned before use. In social studies,  students identified geographical features on a map of Africa along with identifying and describing the characteristics of the land that impact how people live, work, and trade and the causes and effects of water pollution. In language arts, students read the Book “A Long Walk to Water” by Linda Sue Park. Students also read the Scope article - “I Live in a Refugee Camp” (Background, Text Structure, and Text Features) and completed Choice Board Activities as student assessments. Students worked alongside the Water Treatment Plant to come up with solutions to their questions. 

Eighth-grade students at South Effingham Middle School answered the driving question, "How can we design an immersive and engaging experience that educates the community on Georgia Studies?" 

In this PBL, eighth-graders at SEMS worked collaboratively to design a mini-golf course that would educate our local community on the regions of Georgia and various elements of our state. Each homeroom was assigned a different topic to focus on; some focused on specific geographical locations in Georgia like the Barrier Islands or Atlanta, while others focused on topics like Economics or Government. 

The learning target for this PBL was "I am learning to work collaboratively to develop an experience that engages the community in Georgia history, government, and economics." Students achieved this target by working collaboratively to follow the Engineering Design Process as they planned, prototyped, created, recreated, and assessed their mini-golf hole. By incorporating hands-on learning, students were able to go through the process of improving their designs as they learned to work productively in small groups. By the end of the PBL, each homeroom had its own mini-golf hole that was combined with the rest to complete a complete course.

The final mini-golf course was assembled by students and introduced to the community during our school's STEAM Night in the Spring. During this event, local community members were able to play the mini-golf course with programmable Sphero golf balls. With these golf balls, participants used a mobile app to steer the ball into the hole at the end. Students helped these community members navigate the app and the course as they educated them about Georgia Studies.