I loved the idea when I started but was a bit nervous. First I had the students get in their groups and do a quick big post it with as many pictures and quick info that they could find on geologic time. They could do pictures/words/or anything that demonstrated geologic time. I then lined them up and had them look at other groups. They had to place sticky notes on the poster that they thought was the best. I used the # of post it votes to determine the order the groups got to choose their Era for the mural. The first assignment had students individually research their era/periods. They had to answer specific questions about the climate, animal/plant life, and general landscape during their era. Next in groups the students had to create a rough draft. Once this was approved they started painting. All was going well and I got excited... but then it started taking a long time, and I started to feel like they were having fun painting... but they were using a ton of paint and I wasn't confident they were getting any content. When we final got to a stopping point and most groups were done, I did a brief notes lecture on major extinctions. I was happy to find that the majority of my students were engaged and following along. And not only that, I could tell that they were starting to grasp the enormity of geologic time. I could see a light bulb go off about what a small piece of geologic time, humans fit into. By having the Era's around them they were interested and making connections! Success!
The final piece to the project is an individual research paper on a prehistoric animal. The students got right into it and were immediately engaged in researching their animal. Also they seem to understand where their assigned animals fits into the geologic time scale!
Continuing on...I am wrapping up the year. In genetics my students are going to create podcasts that answer the question "Why doesn't everyone get cancer?" Even though I get stressed at the end of the year, I'm happy with how this year has gone and I am looking forward to implementing more PBL into my classes. I think I have a found a good fit for myself with PBL. My major goals are to continue to fine tune making sure content is incorporated into the units and that the objectives are still fully learned by students. Back to work I go! Hooray for the semester coming to an end!
