Design thinking is about using design to improve the human experience. It combines collaboration, systems thinking, and a balance of creative and analytical habits. It also fuels what the students want for themselves: making an impact on the real world in real time and having adults take their passions seriously. The process essentially comes down…

Project-Based Learning (PBL) connects standards-based content to real-world scenarios through the use of projects to improve student achievement. By engaging students in authentic problems that do not have a predetermined solution, students learn both subject matter and critical 21st-century skills. This "Focus On" addresses what…

The United States Military Academy leads a consortium of 12 schools located throughout the country in an effort to improve educational culture through the enhancement of interdisciplinary cooperation and coordination. The primary activity of this program is the development and use of Interdisciplinary Lively Application Projects (ILAPs), the goals…

This publication concerns three environmental education study projects designed to help the college instructor, student, or group of students in identifying environmental problems at the community level and helping to find solutions to them. It discusses the need for and use of environmental problem solving and includes some factors involved with…

This action guide is designed to help students and teachers become aware of the concepts and issues of waste management, and to motivate them to action in the classroom, school, home, and community. The guide emphasizes interdisciplinary activities that concentrate on the process of problem solving. Activities are identified by appropriate grade…

In this paper, we discuss the role of the educator in terms of designing a learning environment for the student which encourages the student to develop their own academic integrity. In such an environment, there is no need for the student to resort to plagiarism, as the learning and assessment tasks are not conducive to cheating, being unique and…

Storysack projects (in which sacks including books and artefacts to help children learn through play are made and distributed), are proliferating in the UK and beyond, often involving work with parents. However, little of this work has been reported. One way to find out about new storysack project ideas is to talk with those directly involved.…

In May 2005, the International Technology Education Association (ITEA) was funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to develop curricular units for Grades K-12 on Space Exploration. The units focus on aspects of the themes that NASA Engineers and Scientists--as well as future generations of explorers--must consider, such…

A goal for minority education is "cultural eclecticism," which combines features of assimilationist and cultural pluralist perspectives into an open-ended educational approach that respects cultural diversity. To achieve this, a project-centered approach to curriculum design, blending the academic functions of the school…