NEDERLAND — Three years ago the Nederland Independent School District rolled out a new project-based learning curriculum to provide students with enhanced 21^st century skills, critical thinking and group comprehension.

Now halfway through the transitional process, Nederland High School Curriculum Coordinator Darrell Evans said the results are beginning to bloom.

“As a school district, one of our goals has been to do more Project-Based Learning,” he said. “The basis is to allow the students to learn how to work together to achieve a common goal and complete a project.”

Project-Based Learning or PBL is a dynamic classroom approach in which students actively explore real-world problems and challenges, acquire knowledge and apply that knowledge to solve a problem. PBL is often done in a group environment.

Evans said the new teaching method differs from traditional project learning in which students are usually lectured on a subject and given an assignment to do at home on their own.

“In a way, it’s an old style of learning,” he said. “It’s come into fashion and moved out of fashion, but we decided three years ago our students needed to learn how to work together to achieve a goal. So we searched through three different models of this and with the help of the Buck Institute in California, we decided this was the best method for us.”

Nederland ISD has trained more than 100 teachers in PBL, moving in increments of 35 teachers per session. Evans said the district has a six-year plan to roll out the method from kindergarten to high school.

Evans said the district started with English and science subjects. Examples of completed projects include “Planning for the Unexpected,” where students analyze non-fiction readings on unexpected happenings such as hurricanes.

“What the students ended up doing is looking at ways to possibly be more prepared for hurricanes,” he said. “Different groups researched evacuation routes and realized that we have only one evacuation route. So their project and solution was to start a ‘fake’ website that gave residents different and safe ways to leave.”

Currently, Shaneigh Smith’s English II class is working on their Project-Based Learning assignment called “Speak up Speak out.”

After reading “Fahrenheit 451” students were asked to take problems from the novel and compare them to their own teenage issues, research the problem and present a solution.

The final product will include a reading of those findings through a podcast.

“I selected podcast because the students are more comfortable speaking in a small room with their friends,” Smith said. “It gives them a chance to really go in depth with the purpose of the project without feeling the pressure of everyone staring at them.

“At the very end, they will create an advertisement for their podcast, which will be formed into a QR code and be spread around the classroom and the school for people to listen to.”

Smith said the sophomore class is currently in the research phase of their project but as an educator she can already see the difference the PBL method is making in her classroom.

“I think it’s great because it bring their real world issues,” she said. “It creates a connection to the novels and how it relates to them today rather than just something they take home and have no connection to.”