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Students Suggest Local Solutions for Global Issues

If you could help solve the problem of global climate change, what would you do? Students across CCSD59 tackled this question in their recent problem-based learning (PBL) unit as they presented their findings to a panel of judges that included district officials, teachers, parents, and local government officials during the week of February 23rd.

“Many of my students shared how exciting it was to present to the Panelists, and although they were nervous at first, once they began it was engaging and actually fun, “ said Jodi Briggs, talent development program (TDP) teacher at Devonshire. “Students liked how they were able to make immediate changes to their presentations based on the feedback from a panelist, so the next panelist would get an instantly improved version of their presentation.”

Mount Prospect Mayor Arlene Juracek, who attended the event as a panelist, thought the students did an excellent job presenting to the variety of panelists. When asked what she liked best about the experience, Mayor Juracek stated, “Getting to meet the students and allowing them to be comfortable addressing someone like a mayor. It made me feel good, as well as boosting [the students’] self-confidence.”

The experience was designed by the district’s TDP teachers for the third through fifth grade students in the district’s program. During the process, students chose a specific area of interest related to climate change, researched issues related to their selected area, and then established a potential solution for the issue. Solutions included ideas such as adding a water bottle filling station in schools to reduce discarded plastic water bottles, holding a local rally to raise awareness and funding to help support climate change efforts, and many other creative ideas.

Dr. Josh Carpenter, coordinator of math and the TDP program, said the students walked away with many takeaways.

“Students had to develop a local solution to a much more global issue, and had to look through the lens of someone besides themselves. They had to look at the issues they chose from an environmental perspective or a safety perspective,” he said.

He also said that strong collaboration skills, working together, compromising, and organizing were required of students who are used to working as individuals.

Both Ms. Briggs and Dr. Carpenter also shared they were impressed by the level of research the students had prepared, the varied ways they presented their evidence, and the appropriate usage of very high level vocabulary.

“They were clear on their solutions and had evidence based data on how much things would cost, how much it would save, how safe they were,” Dr. Carpenter said, “just like we as professionals make proposals every day in the real world…the skills they practiced were highly transferrable to all areas of learning.”

He summed up the success of the experience by stating, “I’d like to extend a thank you to Harper college, whose coordination was so on point, very professional and assisted greatly with the success of the event, and to our Board members and all the panelists who volunteered their time. We had a very diverse group of over 30-40 panelists who participated. Having an authentic audience is very important and provided the students with the best learning experience possible.”

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