Some PBL topic ideas...

--> What I got from the chapter
Look at http://docs.google.com/View?id=ddr83njm_116fd2sw9f4

--> Activities
I found 3 interesting projects in the www.gsn.org/pr/

1. Seasonal changes through our eyes and yours project
- http://www.globalschoolnet.org/GSH/pr/GetDetail.cfm?StartRow=1&view=2&projtype=%272009%2F09%27&sortby=Start%20Date&fAge=5&tAge=19&pID=1855
- The brief: Students are asked to observe tree, temperature, clothing, and sunrise/sunset for one week during winter and spring season. Then, they have to make report and/or photos/charts, send it through email to other peers, and compare. Finally, they have to make also the comparison data.
- I like this project because students will be engaged a lot. First, they have to research data and do preparation. Second, they have to do observation. Third, make report. Fourth, send email. Fifth, read peers report and compare. Sixth, make comparison report. There are many things students will learn from this project. Not only they learn about
environment, temperature and seasonal clothes, but also do many interesting, motivating, and thought-provoking activities.

2. Global communication project
- http://www.globalschoolnet.org/GSH/pr/GetDetail.cfm?StartRow=1&view=2&projtype=%272009%2F09%27&sortby=Start%20Date&fAge=5&tAge=19&pID=3608
- The brief: students are required to research data about life in other countries, from food, religion, government, etc. Then, students will have to create questions for the students from that 'other' countries so that they can collect data about the United States perception from the eyes of students outside the United States. At the end, students are expected to build a database based on the collected data.
- Actually, the idea is brilliant because students will have to do many research, including designing questionnaire and creating database. However, I think this project is complicated and have prerequisite information (in this case, students might not be able to start if the prerequisite is not available). The prerequisite is the student from the other countries. Based on the detail information about the project, the teacher will first provide each students/group with some names of students from outside the United States, then they can start doing the research and the questionnaire. The problem is: what if nobody outside the U.S responded this project? Then, the project might not be completed fully, or the teacher might give some dummy data, which I think is not good, because as Moursund stated that "One important role the teacher plays in a PBL lesson is in helping students see the parallels between the project and similar real-world projects" so that it is important to connect the students to the real sources or data (p.23).

3. The virtual museum of music inventions project
- http://www.globalschoolnet.org/GSH/pr/GetDetail.cfm?StartRow=1&view=1&projtype=future%2Ccurrent%3Ball&sortby=Start%20Date&fAge=5&tAge=21&pID=141
- The brief: students are asked to make their own instrument and analyze the process of the sound making in the instrument. After that, they will take some pictures of the instrument and send to the pictures to the Virtual Museum of Music Inventions for display.
- This project is interesting because students are expected to create something real, through some research of sound and voices. However, if I were a teacher, I wouldn't choose this kind of project for my students because there are not many activities they can do, and from the overall assumption: this project is too difficult. Creating real instrument that really works will need lots of time, and in this case, there will be not many things they will learn from.