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Welcome to the PBL Playbook, brought to you by Magnify Learning – where we put teachers back in their sweet spot. Make sure you follow us on Twitter: @magnifylearning, @askgiebs, @MissB103, #PBLPlaybook.

Josh and Andrea continue the PBL Project Blitz series where once a month, they highlight a PBL project by veterans in the PBL classroom. 

In this special leap-day bonus episode of the PBL Project Blitz series, our hosts sit down with Nate Langel (@natelangel), a High School Chemistry teacher at the Grand Rapids Public Museum School (MI). He shares an incredibly powerful project in which he partners with Heartside Ministry, a local non-profit to help those facing homelessness and other challenges. Through this project, Langel’s students make connections with the individuals receiving services from Heartside, and then get the opportunity to create a product that will in some way assist these individuals. Throughout this project, students learn about polar and nonpolar interaction in elements like oil and water, and the chemical makeup that creates these interactions. Then enters soap, the element that breaks down the barriers between these two. In a moving and inspiring outline of his project, Langel makes the human connection of the real people that are “oil and water” in society, and how his students have the incredible opportunity to embrace their role and be the “soap” in their community, using their new knowledge of the chemical makeup of and interactions between products to break down barriers and make real world connections. 

Stay tuned for more awesome projects as the PBL Project Blitz series continues every month!

Music from https://attaboyonline.com/home#music

"Waking Up" by Attaboy (https://attaboyonline.com/home#music)

*For more PBL Resources and PBL professional development opportunities check out the Magnify Learning Website: https://www.magnifylearningin.org/