What is the Green 180 Project?

As teachers, we hear of great projects where teams join forces to work together and solve a problem. We see the effect it has on the children involved and how they come out of it feeling empowered. The goal of this project is to provide a path to empowerment through the most talked about issue of today, going green. With the increasing need to enlighten our students on their future challenges, as well as use 21st century tools in the classroom, Green 180 was conceived.

We want to make it something that can be replicated, so we are taking copious amounts of notes about our steps. If it is successful, we would love to see it become a venue where teams can compete for 21st century prizes. Wouldn't that be fun? Who said changing a child's perception of the world couldn't be enlightening, challenging and rewarding all at the same time.

We would love to hear your thoughts comments and ideas about this project. Additionally, we would appreciate any lesson plans or related projects that you found particularly successful in your classroom. This project is created by teachers for teachers; and hopefully this website will become a fabulous resource for you and your colleagues to return to throughout your teaching career.

How does Green 180 Work?

Five teams, one from every well inhabited continent are paired together. The five teams have approximately 10 students each making the team approximately 60 students strong.

Introductions will take place via a group teleconference online during the kick off week of the project. During this time, all of the students will have a chance to introduce themselves online get to meet their friends from around the world. During this time, we will also introduce the first project and show the how to use Ed Voice Thread so they can easily complete it.

The first project introduced is the "Who Am I" project. Each student creates their own video about themselves to be commented on by their 59 other teammates. Every week, one student from each class will release their video so that each day of the week, the students can view a new team member and get to know them. This process will last about 15 weeks depending upon the schedule. All of these videos will be released through Ed Voice Thread in order to keep the privacy of the students and to ensure their safety.

Creating the Voice Thread should only take a few weeks for the students to complete. Once every team signs off on their completion, the students will be introduced to project number two which is the big one! This project will probably last the rest of the year. It will first involve a science experiment that the students will compete at their schools and then discuss the results together. This will be conducted during the time that the "Who Am I" projects's are being released.

Like every science experiment, the students will go through each of the phases of the scientific method documenting their progress and the results. This science experiment will be the basis for the next and final major project which will take the entire rest of the year.

We will assume at this point that the students have researched the topic from their science experiment extremely well and feel very comfortable with the topic. With that knowledge basis, the team is going to create a 5-8 minute script for a video telling the importance of their topic in their own way. Each class will have a script when this is complete. The classes will then continue on, creating their project as detailed on the collaborative project page.

The results of the project will be five completed movies available for publication online. The future goal is for the teams to pick one of the movies to then submit them for competition and for a grand prize. Rules and regulations for movies are available.