Yr 8: Problem Based Learning at the end of year 7 2019

By Holly Williamson

On Wednesday the 27th of November in 2019, the Year Sevens, who are now in Year 8, presented their projects for Problem Based Learning. This article missed the deadline last year but thought it was still worth publishing it. 

For this project, Yr 7 students  got put into groups of three or four to think of an idea to solve the problem of Ocean Plastics. 

To start the program, which began on the first day of Term Four 2019, we watched a documentary and were put into random groups. We had lessons across the subjects (ten in all including the presentation) where we researched the issue, learnt the science of marine ecology and wrote an editorial.  

In the last few sessions we had to come up with a solution. Once we had come up with the idea, we would make a prototype of the idea to show to another house. You could choose any way to present your idea, whether it was a poster, website, movie or anything. 

We got our own booklets with mission points for completion of set tasks. We had to devise rules and reflect on how we worked together. We then brainstormed our ideas, including moonshot ideas, and designed our idea ready to present. It was a different type of learning. One student, Leilani said, “I really enjoyed actually making something!”

“I enjoyed seeing lots of other students’ ideas” said another student India. 

Three students got a reply from a letter they sent to Scott Morrison.  We never know just where our ideas will end up!