As a science teacher, both of these terms very intimidating. In the classroom, training these young scientists requires that they’re able to both read prior research in order to “stand on the shoulders of giants” and work collaboratively to solve problems.

When I started BirdBrain, the first goal was to tackle literacy in the science classroom. Science teachers need an easy way to integrate differentiated content into their lessons without spending hours a night seeking different sources from which to pull together readings or writing their own material. Through this need spawned BirdBrain and an easy way to bring Common Core expectations to students reading at different levels.

We now see that the Next Gen Science Standards (NGSS) require students to do more than just read critically. Students must build, design, and solve problems. This provides a perfect opportunity for us to bring Project Based Learning (PBL) into the fold. Here at BirdBrain, we’re newbies to the world of PBL, but the Buck Institute for Education is working this year to make huge leaps in developing a Gold Standard for PBL.

What does high-quality, successful PBL look like? How can educators ramp up their practice and collaborate with each other to improve PBL outcomes for their students? The answers to these questions are to be developed over the year by BIE and their findings will be released at PBL World in June.

We can’t wait!