How to Use Project-Based Learning to Empower Students as Community Activists

By Kylee McIntosh, Former Teacher & Academic Designer at McGraw Hill

At McGraw Hill, our work is informed by the experiences of the many former educators on our staff. This series highlights their perspectives.

If you’re in education, you’ve probably heard whispers of “project-based learning” in the halls. But what is it? Project-based learning is often misinterpreted to mean a typical unit that culminates in a student creation, like an art piece or performance. While I’m not knocking the benefits of a good diorama project, the idea of project-based learning goes beyond that.

I like to think of project-based learning (PBL) units as giving students a real-world job. Most jobs require us to solve problems. Plumbers fix toilets, chefs fill empty bellies, doctors heal ailments…you get the idea. Like these jobs, a good PBL unit should encourage students to identify an issue in their world and solve it.

In my 5th grade Bilingual Language Arts class, I facilitated a project-based learning unit that assigned them the job of an Activist. They were asked to identify and actually solve a problem in their community, the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago. They identified problems in their neighborhood, debated and chose which issue to take action on, and finally tackled littering with an educational poster campaign and a letter to our local alderperson.

My school also happened to be a STEAM school with an emphasis on Design Thinking, a mindset for solving problems. Design Thinking encourages designers to empathize with their end users (in this case, the members of our local community) and think about how people interact with their environments. It also emphasizes an iterative, trial-and-error process to design solutions. All of this lent itself very easily to our PBL Activism unit.

This PBL unit had so many benefits for my students. They collaborated. They used cross-curricular skills and knowledge. (After all, most jobs don’t require us to know just one subject area.) They used critical thinking skills to problem-solve. They practiced empathy in considering what problems existed not only for themselves but for their greater community. The kids were excited to make real change in their neighborhood, and as the project lent itself to a lot of student choice, they really took ownership of the process. What I found especially impactful was that, for the first time in their school journey, they were learning about and discussing the immediate area in which they lived. (And I learned some things right alongside them!)

So how did we do it? Here’s a quick outline of the steps I led my students through:

Ask Questions

Great activists don’t just wake up knowing what changes need to be made. They get out and find the issues. So that’s what my students did.

First, we did an observation walk. Students took their “field journals” with them and sketched out what they saw. They identified concerns- construction, smog, littering, etc. Then they took what they learned from that walk and created a Google Forms survey for the community, asking things like, “Is construction in our area a problem for you?” I helped them link this using a QR code so they could share it with our community on printouts and emails. We received 40 responses from community members!

Research

My students also did research on issues in the Logan Square area through a series of resources I chose. They examined news articles and video clips about construction, gentrification, trash, and rat infestations (a surprisingly engaging topic with 5th graders). They also analyzed a poem by local poet Luis “Logan Lu” Tubens, called Searching for Home, about the impacts of gentrification on himself and his neighbors.

Define the Problem and Decide on a Solution

First, my students reviewed their field journal notes, analyzed the community survey results, and identified key details from their investigation articles. We discussed various ways to take action in your community — poster campaigns, holding a rally, teaching people how to do better, contacting someone in power, etc. Then they searched for patterns in their data, had group discussions, voted and debated, and voted again until they had finally landed on a problem and solution. They decided to tackle littering with an education poster campaign and, at their request, a letter to our local alderperson.

Plan, Create, Improve

Before they began creating their posters, I had my students sketch out their ideas and provide each other with feedback. Sometimes, this meant erasing and redoing parts or going back to the drawing board completely. Going back to our STEAM school motto, I reminded them that we are Design Thinkers, and that means learning from mistakes. Some of my students got frustrated, but also somehow more determined, during this step.

They also drafted the letter to the alderperson by first creating letters in groups and then picking their favorite bits to put together one class letter.

Share

Finally, students shared their hard work. They posted their signs around the neighborhood and took pictures with their posters to attach to the letter to the alderperson, which we sent via email.

If you decide to take on a project-based learning unit of your own, here are some tips I humbly offer:

1. Relinquish control: This is so hard to do with the pressure of standards and assessments and scope and sequences and a million other things on our shoulders, but it is so rewarding, too. PBL units lend themselves to lots of student choice, which I found exciting and terrifying. For instance, I had been hoping that they might focus on the problem of construction as it seemed like a more important issue to address, but in the end, they chose littering and got plenty of standards-aligned learning out of it.
2. Keep it community-based: My students really enjoyed learning about concerns that directly affected them and their community. They didn’t know the word gentrification, but they had plenty of examples of it from their own life experiences once they learned. They had also seen a rat or two in their alleys. (And they giggled a lot at a quote in a news article in which a neighbor called the rats of Chicago “super-rats.”)
3. Actually do the things: PBL units are revered for their authenticity and real-world opportunities. But you have to actually bring the activities to the real world and not just practice them in class- take students on the walking field trip, send their survey to real community members, post up the posters, and email the politician! This was a little intimidating for me at first, but when we got those survey results from actual community members- school staff, families, neighbors- I knew it was worth it to step out of my comfort zone.
4. Don’t forget to scaffold: Each step above took about 1 or 2 lessons. I created models for each product I expected students to create, as well as opportunities to try one together. For example, we analyzed a survey about ice cream that had both good and biased survey questions. One big obstacle for me was finding articles about local issues that were at appropriate reading levels for my students. I searched EdTech sites that offer texts differentiated by Lexile, such as Achieve3000 Literacy, Newsela, and CommonLit to help with this. I also used videos to help students access information.
5. Pick and choose what you grade: I only graded the things that were related to my subject area’s (ELA) standards. I gave participation points for other aspects of the project. The activities that I did decide to grade, I was sure to spend more time on, setting expectations and providing scaffolding when needed. For instance, I graded students’ summaries of the research articles and the poem. But I gave them (and myself) a pass on things like the observation sketch and anti-littering posters. I felt it gave my students a little more artistic freedom and me a little fewer papers to take home.

Kylee McIntosh is an Academic Designer for K-5 Literature at McGraw Hill and a former 5th-8th grade teacher. She holds an English Language Arts teaching certificate with specialties in Multilingual Learners and Bilingual (Spanish/English) Education. She completed her courses for a Master’s in Education Management at the Universidad de San Andres in Buenos Aires. She currently resides in Chicago, IL.