“For some of my students, this is one of the first real opportunities they’ve had to serve, and that is very much changing some of my students’ outlooks, some of my students’ attitudes. There’s some very deep level things and conversations with students. Coming back from our first visit to Heartside, they’ll say ‘I met so-and-so, and I’m really thinking about their story.”
SHOW NOTES
Josh and Andrea continue the PBL Project Blitz series where once a month, they highlight a PBL project by veterans in the PBL classroom.
In this special leap-day bonus episode of the PBL Project Blitz series, our hosts sit down with Nate Langel (@natelangel), a High School Chemistry teacher at the Grand Rapids Public Museum School (MI). He shares an incredibly powerful project in which he partners with Heartside Ministry, a local non-profit to help those facing homelessness and other challenges. Through this project, Langel’s students make connections with the individuals receiving services from Heartside, and then get the opportunity to create a product that will in some way assist these individuals. Throughout this project, students learn about polar and nonpolar interaction in elements like oil and water, and the chemical makeup that creates these interactions. Then enters soap, the element that breaks down the barriers between these two. In a moving and inspiring outline of his project, Langel makes the human connection of the real people that are “oil and water” in society, and how his students have the incredible opportunity to embrace their role and be the “soap” in their community, using their new knowledge of the chemical makeup of and interactions between products to break down barriers and make real world connections.
Stay tuned for more awesome projects as the PBL Project Blitz series continues every month!
School: Grand Rapids Public Museum School -Grand Rapids, MI
PBL UNIT OVERVIEW:
PBL Unit Name: Heartside Material Science
Grade & Subject: High School Chemistry
Standards:
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HS-PS2-6 Communicate scientific and technical information about why the molecular-level structure is important in the functioning of designed materials
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HS-PS1-3 Plan and conduct an investigation to gather evidence to compare the structure of substances at the bulk scale to infer the strength of electrical forces between particles.
Driving Question: How can we use material science to develop useful care, food, or art products to share with neighbors at Heartside Ministry?
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Know polar and nonpolar interactions at the molecule level affect how substances mix and interact together.
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Understand people are sometimes like oil and water, but we don’t have to be.
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Create a usable donation product to share with Heartside and a Slides presentation of the molecular interactions.
Entry Event: We visited Heartside the first day of the project, received a tour, chatted with folks in the art studio space, and did a poverty “game of life” simulation and empathy building activity.
Community Partner: Heartside Ministry
End Product: The last day of the project we returned, donated, and presented the chemistry slides: Heartside Ministry Slides
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