Edutopia was founded in 1991 by George Lucas with the mission of helping students and teachers in K-12 acquire and build skills that can help them in their adult lives. Edutopia is partnered with Lucas Education Research, which conducts research in education with various different universities.  Their goal is to preserve education and give all students the skills they need to survive in the 21st century world.

Getting Started With PBL in Social Studies

Edutopia provides an overview article that helps teachers know where to begin with the process of project based learning, if they are unfamiliar with it.  They lay out five steps to creating an engaging project:

1. Create a question for students to answer - Depending on the unit that you are teaching it can help students connect the ideas of the past to the present. If the question is strong enough it will create interest and intrigue among students.

2. Give students time to research - When students are researching, provide them scaffolding and support. You could do mini-lessons about the topic or provide videos for students to watch. If students are struggling with research, having a lesson dedicated to learning research tactics can also help.

3. Have students organize and visualize their research - students can organize their research either on paper or digitally, whichever works best for them. Not only will this give you a way to track student progress, but know which students to check in with.

4. Have students create their stories - Allow students to choose the medium for their final project and choose how they want it to be seen  by their classmates and potentially others

5. Have students share their project - This is one of the biggest reasons to do projects, is to create a space where students not only feel comfortable sharing their work but want to and enjoy sharing and hearing others' work. This not only allows students to practice their presentation skills but can also be a good time to practice their self-reflection skills.

  The Howard Zinn project aims to help teachers and educators change the narrative in history from those at the top, such as owners and generals, to looking more closely at the workers and the soldiers. The broader a view that you can provide for students, the clearer the past will become and in turn the more they will begin to understand the present. The project is named after Howard Zinn who wrote a groundbreaking book called A People’s History of the United States, and that is exactly what these resources aim to teach, the people’s history. 

Reconstructing the South: A Role Play by Bill Bigelow

This article asks a big question for students, now that the Civil War is over, “What kind of country is this going to be”. This would be the inquiry question for the unit and it would ask students to instead of focusing on the governmental issues and battles during this time, they would be asked to look at it from the perspective of formerly enslaved people who were given their freedom back.  They would be asked to define their own freedom. They would focus on issues such as land ownership, voting rights, self-defense, and the conditions placed on former Confederate states. The purpose of the simulation is to present students with a chance to create a society with greater equality and justice.

If I were to use this simulation/role play in my classroom in the future I would want to do it a little differently than in the project. I would want the students to work in either pairs or groups of three and choose to tackle one of the issues above. Their job would be to create a propaganda poster for their cause. They would research what actually happened during the time and see what people were saying and doing to fight the injustices of the time.

The 1619 Project was created by Nikole Hannah-Jones and is a collection of essays and other works by historians, journalists, and artists. The goal of this project is to shine a light on the importance of slavery when it comes to the founding of contemporary America, but stating that the true founding of the country is in 1619 as this was the year that enslaved Africans first arrived in the country.  The 1619 was originally posted in the New York times and features hundred of lessons and resources for teacher to use in the classroom across disciplines.

Reconstructing American History: Creating Altered Books

Summary: This is a unit that was designed by an art and language arts teacher and with the purpose of having students create their own “altered books” that tell history in a new light. Students will not only research stories that have been left out of history but can also present them in a unique way.

 If I were to use this resource in my classroom as a project it would be with more of an emphasis on history than writing. I would also encourage students to make the book short, but available and open to people of all ages. If students are not as artistic and do not feel comfortable drawing, then they are more than welcome to use pictures from the internet. This would be a great chance for students to research figures that are often left behind and forgotten by history and tell their story. While I would compile a large list of potential people to base their story off of, they are more than able to research and find their own stories. The students would then present their books to small groups at the end of the project. It would also be an interesting opportunity for me as a teacher to find these histories that have been forgotten.