Discussion Board

Hi Kathleen,

My name is LaTerika Wilson and I am the Site Coordinator of the Texas ACE Afterschool Program at Cedars International Academy in Austin, Texas.

I have some middle school students and staff who are interested in doing something sports related but I’m not quite sure how to turn that into PBL especially since I’m not athletic. I did some research and saw that there’s a decline in students’ participation in sports and I wanted to use that and we came up with the idea of a field day being the culminating activity but I’ve gotten stuck after that.

Can you help?

1.    Use a driving questions such as:  “How can we, as basketball players, plan and host a basketball camp for our younger peers.”  Using this driving question, not only will students get to play basketball, but also will be required to think through what they would need to do to set up a camp (plan activities, decide on what skills to teach, how to teach them, marketing the event, registering students, and actually hosting the event).
2.    Use a driving question such as:  “How can we, as game developers, create a new game using some of the principals themes of soccer.”  Using this approach, students could play soccer, but would also have to analyze how to change the game in a way that would make it new and fresh and then teach others how to play the game.  They would not only have to analyze how to make the game work, how to score, how to teach it, but also how to write a play book and directions on how to play.
3.    Use a driving question such as:  “How can we, as sports players, teach others the importance of nutrition to fitness.”  This would allow students to analyze how nutrition effects their energy levels and fitness goals.  They would have to answer questions such as:  What foods provide fuel for our body,  does food have a direct impact on muscle development.  They could then set up a demonstration to show an interested audience (such as high school sports players) how to plan a diet that would help them reach peak performance.

Those are a few ideas.  Let me know if you want to bounce off some others.  Kathleen