When the community of Dayton, Ohio—charged in 2008 with founding a STEM high school—pondered how to bring life to its mission of connecting students to real-world outcomes, they didn’t need to look far. Within Dayton city limits, employers like GE Aviation, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and Kettering Health Network were seeking employees who could be, in the words of the Ohio Department of Education, “innovators and inventors, self-reliant and logical thinkers, and technologically proficient problem solvers.” The area was rich with opportunities in applied science and mathematics.
In other words, local industry was looking for just the type of inquisitive STEM student that the Dayton Regional STEM School was trying to develop. To connect the dots, educators at the school adopted a project-based learning (PBL) approach to instruction that focuses on addressing real-world issues, with an emphasis on solving authentic, interdisciplinary problems. For example, for a 10th-grade assignment exploring the question “How can we reduce the impact of cancer in the Dayton region?” students worked in groups across language arts, health and fitness, and biology classes to research, write, and produce PSA videos that were shared with the Dayton community via social media.
Using Project-Based Learning to Prepare Students for Cutting-Edge Careers