Collaborative Projects

Project Approach

What Is the Collaborative Classroom? - From the NCREL Web site, this article suggests four key characteristics of successful collaborative environments.

Online Collaborative Projects - Join one of these online collaborative projects designed for classrooms around the world.

Buddy Project - The goal of the Buddy Project is to promote collaborative teamwork among teachers and media specialists for the promotion of family literacy.

Collaboration Rubric - Review collaborative efforts with this rubric.

Enhancing Student Thinking Through Collaborative Learning - Study the benefits of collaborative learning from ERIC digest.

Craftsman/NSTA Young Inventors Awards Program, a children's invention competition for kids in grades 2-8, administered by the National Science Teachers Association

Collaborative Projects

Field Trips

RACE ROCKS ONLINE LESSON PLANS - This is for science and biology teachers, roughly from Grade 4 through high school, with some application to middle-grade Math (data analysis). It's the second of our two-part series on websites about the ocean. Race Rocks classroom activities were designed to link last year's Jason project, From Shore To Sea, with the B.C. K-12 science curriculum.

Freeway to the Heart: The Power of an Image project - students will examine photographs that have rocked the people who viewed them. Join the miidle school students from Master's Academy and College (Calgary, Alberta, Canada) as they familiarize themselves with Pulitzer Prize winning photographs and learn that photographs can have a life beyond the moment they were taken by prompting social change.

Building Homes Of Our Own - Grades 6-9 - A FREE Reality Based CD-ROM Game. Building Homes of Our Own is an interactive teaching tool developed for the middle school classroom environment. The game presents a macro view of the entire home building process from site selection to final sale. Players will collect information, solve problems and make choices as they build a 3D home against a budget. When complete, players review credit applications and sell to the buyer of their choice.

The Square of Life: Studies in Local and Global Environments - The project begins on September 9. K-6 students will plot square meters in their school yards and record the living and non-living things that are found therein. They will submit this information to the project database for all to view. Students will then compare and contrast their information with that submitted by other classes and prepare a brief report or presentation that will be posted to the project web site.

Adventure Learning Foundation - This site takes students and teachers on real and virtual expeditions around the world. Through a collection of original pictures and journal excerpts, visitors can accompany travelers exploring the natural environment, culture, and peoples of different continents.

NASA Student Involvement Program 2003 - The NASA Student Involvement Program (NSIP) is NASA's national competition for students in grades K-12. NSIP rewards student research on NASA's missions of exploration, discovery and invention. The NSIP web site offers excellent classroom activities, resource guides, judging rubrics, and books. These standards-based resources are available online and free of charge to enrich your science classroom.

In 2002-03, the whole nation will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers' historic achievement at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina: the world's first powered, controlled flight. The special theme for NSIP's Science and Technology Journalism competition is "The Centennial of Flight." To find out more about how you and your students can celebrate this event with a news story or video, visit