While science is a natural home for project-based learning techniques, blending in the global competencies and other subjects can sometimes be more challenging. This session will focus on approaches to incorporating global competencies in science in both elementary and secondary settings. We will look at some concrete examples and have opportunities to collaborate with colleagues throughout the network. Please bring a computer to this session as we will be accessing online resources.

1. A systematic teaching method that
engages learners in acquiring
knowledge and skills through an
extended inquiry process structured
around complex, relevant questions,
carefully designed products, and
authentic tasks.
From Introduction to Project Based Learning Handbook, Buck Institute for Education.
Project Based Learning

2. ISSN Connection
• Engaging students by addressing global
challenges.
• Globalizing the context for learning.
• Connecting to universal themes.
• Illuminating the global history of
knowledge.
• Learning through international
collaboration.

3. ISSN Global Issue Overview
Created by ISSN to focus on
Globally Significant Issues
ISSN Global Issue Overviews contain:
• A summary of the issue
• Essential Questions and Enduring Understandings
• Several project ideas for multiple subjects

4. Infectious Diseases
Health and disease are global issues: they affect individuals, local
communities, and nations. They transcend borders, both because the
spread of disease reaches beyond nation-state lines and because the
health of communities far away has a tangible impact on economics,
politics, and culture. Exploration of the spread of infectious diseases
and the individual and organizational efforts to prevent air-borne and
water-borne diseases can be undertaken at all grade levels and across
all content areas.

5. Essential Questions
• What can one person do to
prevent the spread of
disease?
• What are the economic,
social, and moral costs of
the global burden of
disease?
Enduring Understandings
• Individuals can affect the
landscape of infectious
disease.
• Education counteracts the
spread of infectious
diseases in both developing
and developed countries.

6. Science Ideas
Position Paper: Write a paper that takes a position on the
question: “Can the healthy and wealthy afford to ignore the
health and well-being of the poor and sick?”

7. Speech: You are a speechwriter for the Secretary-General of the
United Nations. You have to write a speech for the next world
summit in which you answer the question: “Should the UN
Declaration of Human Rights be changed to include health as a
human right?”

8. • Solution-Planning. In Mountains Beyond Mountains, Tracy
Kidder observes, “A doctor who knew nothing about local
beliefs might end up at war with Voodoo priests, but a
doctor-anthropologist who understood those beliefs could
find ways to make Voodoo Houngans his allies” (p. 83). Create
a plan for the implementation of a disease prevention
solution in a region of the globe that considers and
accommodates the cultural and religious beliefs and
traditions of the region for implementation.

9. Math Idea
• Campaign: Create a school- or community- wide media campaign
to raise awareness about the global need for clean water access
using mathematical comparisons (such as rates, ratios, and
proportions) to water use and access throughout the world.

10. Build A Lesson To Share
Elementary Model
NGSS 3 LS1-1 Develop models to describe that organisms have
unique and diverse life cycles but all have in common birth,
growth, reproduction, and death.

11. Why PBL on this Standard?
Why does this NGSS Standard deserve the PBL treatment? Use
your reasoning to create the description of the lesson.

12. What Will Be Your
Enduring Understandings and
Essential Questions
For This Standard?

13. If the standard is
Develop models to describe that organisms have unique and
diverse life cycles but all have in common birth, growth,
reproduction, and death.
Then, what kinds of models is it practical for
a third grader to make?

14. How Does This Become A Global Topic?
• Look at animal life cycles who live in different places across the
globe.
• What are environmental issues that may impact the health or
natural progression of an animal’s life cycle?
• Discuss the impact some of these animals have on surrounding
environments and what could occur should they go extinct.

15. What ISSN Performance Outcomes Can Be
Applied To This Particular Project?
• Investigate the World
– Uses an existing theory or model provided by the teacher
to explain a direct observation. Begins to identify
limitations of the theory or model.
• Communicate Ideas
– Supports a provided argument or explanation with
evidence, data, and/or a model.

16. Does This NGSS Standard Lend Itself
Well To Other Subjects?
ELA: Compare and contrast the life cycle of the
butterfly and the frog to discuss similarities and
differences. Be sure to include pictures.

17. Does This NGSS Standard Lend Itself
Well To Other Subjects?
Math: Design a circle graph discussing how much time of an
animal’s life is spent in each stage.
Up
To
46%
At
Least
22%
8%
Around
25 %

18. NGSS: Evaluate the evidence supporting claims that changes in
environmental conditions may result in: (1) increases in the
number of individuals of some species, (2) the emergence of new
species over time, and (3) the extinction of other species.
Why does this NGSS Standard deserve the PBL treatment? Use
your reasoning to create the description of the lesson.
18
Build A Lesson To Share

19. What Will Be Your Enduring Understandings
and Essential Questions For This Standard?

20. If the standard is
Evaluate the evidence supporting claims that changes in
environmental conditions may result in:
Then, what kind of evidence do we provide?
Can we make it experiential?

21. How Does This Become A Global Topic?
• With so much travel across the globe many animals that are not native to
an environment are being displaced and they are becoming an invasive
species. How does this impact the ecosystem?
• What is the human impact on extinction, both positively and negatively?
• Discuss the impact some of these animals have on surrounding
environments and what could occur should they go extinct.

22. What ISSN Performance Outcomes Can Be
Applied To This Particular Project?
• Investigate the World
– Gathers and analyzes relevant background information from a variety of
primary and secondary sources representing domestic or international
perspectives. Evidence is directly related to a global issue and the
hypothesis or research thesis.
• Recognizing Perspectives
– Explains a local or global issue, using information about relevant local or
global context(s) to understand and identify implications for addressing the
issue.

23. Does This NGSS Standard Lend Itself
Well To Other Subjects?
History: Over the course of time find five different species that
have gone extinct. Did man play a hand in any of these
extinctions, if so how? What was mankind doing during this
time in history?

24. Does This NGSS Standard Lend Itself
Well To Other Subjects?
PE: Design a predator/prey simulation that involves students
using athletic equipment to hunt and capture prey. Over the
course of time, students may evolve their strategy around both
hunting and escaping.