Learning by Doing
B2 · Listening: Listening to talks · Education Systems
Project Week · Year 10 · The brief
THE PROBLEM: Every summer, the beach at Sunbeam Bay is left covered in plastic after the weekend crowds have gone home. Cleaners collect around two tonnes of rubbish every Monday morning, much of it bottles, food boxes and broken beach toys.
YOUR TASK: Working in teams of four, design a realistic way to reduce the rubbish left on the beach. You may propose a product, a service, an event or a campaign, but it must be something that could actually be tried next summer.
THE PROCESS: Day 1 — interview at least three stakeholders (a beach cleaner, a café owner, a family on the beach). Day 2 — choose one idea and build a simple prototype. Day 3 — test it with real people and change it. Day 4 — prepare a five-minute presentation. Day 5 — present to a panel that includes the town’s environment officer.
THE RULES: Every team member must have a role. Teachers will act as advisers, not leaders: they will answer questions, but they will not tell you what to do. Having finished the presentation, each student will write a short reflection on what they learnt and what they would do differently.
Vocabulary
- hands-on — learning by doing things yourself
- real-world — existing in real life, not only in books
- stakeholder — a person affected by a decision or project
- prototype — a first model of something, made to test it
- reflect (on) — think carefully about something you did
- to sum up — used to introduce a short summary
Sample questions (10 questions)
- What must teams do on the first day?
- interview people affected by the problem
- build a prototype
- present to the environment officer
- What will teachers do during project week?
- answer questions but not make decisions for teams
- lead each team and choose the best idea
- write the reflections with the students
- Put the parts of Dr Rivera’s talk in order.
Answers and hints from Migo appear when you do it online.