Because a trip to a baseball stadium can be filled with academic rigor

 Everyone has their own opinions about Project-based learning.  I loved it, but many respected colleagues wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole.  

It depends on how much organized chaos you can take in a classroom! 😅

Why try PBL?

There was something magical about watching kids work together to solve a problem. I liked that students were mostly kind and helpful, listened to each other, and got excited about their solutions together.

It felt like I was watching the better part of themselves come out.  

What makes something PBL?

There are lots of projects out there that are billed as project-based learning activities but aren't quite.  At the upper elementary level, that's perfectly okay.  More teachers are willing to dip their toes into these activities when they feel that there's some structure.

As long as students have choices, I'm not going to stand on principle.  Anytime students have the chance to collaborate, think critically, communicate, and be creative?  That's a win!

Blend geography, baseball, and food

How do you get to those higher-order skills on Bloom's taxonomy, like synthesis and analysis, or those 21st-century skills mentioned above?  One way I discovered was to combine students' interests with research and critical thinking.  

Learning about baseball teams is a nice challenge.  Playing around with food menus is another.  Figuring out a few things about this large country of ours is the third.

Baseball

In what way does a baseball team reflect the culture of the region by its name or uniform design?  Who are the important sponsors?  The food served at the stadium reflects what people in the area eat.  What can you learn from that?

✨Stay with me on this one.  

Last year, we took a 2,000+ mile trip by car over a few weeks.  As we traveled further away from my home, I noticed that if I wanted oatmeal for breakfast, I got the gloppy, tasteless stuff.  No menu carried baked oatmeal.  Curious, I posted that question on social media. Many people had no idea what I was talking about!  Where I live, it's on most breakfast menus. And it's delicious!

Regional foods

So, staying with food as a way to learn about a region:  have students pick their favorite baseball team or randomly assign them to teams.  With 30 teams, you should have some flexibility if kids want to trade.

Using QR codes, they'll go to MLB sites and learn all about their team.

Geography

As students learn about their team, how it was started, and how many times it might have moved, they learn about our 50 states.  The geography work allows them to explore the geography of the region and how that might have impacted the team.

Create a Food Business

Students get to research foods that are more common in particular regions; they use that knowledge to see if they should invest in a restaurant that serves it.  There are fun ways for them to decide what kinds of unique foods they want to serve.

And then they come up with a name, a menu, advertising, and more to let folks know their restaurant is about to open!

There are also 10 extension projects that you can have students do, some of them requiring writing, so with all this project work, you can also get a writing sample.

All the while, your students are collaborating and thinking critically and creatively about what restaurant might work best for their team and their region.

You can click here or on the picture to take a closer look at this challenging and fun resource!