We Will Survive!

The survivor project based learning (PBL) has been a tradition for the seventh grade class at SBS for the past 12 years. Student teams were grouped in Bible classes where most of the assignment’s collaboration takes place. Students researched Texas disasters and made plans of survival for future events. The presentations were made in the form of a museum in seventh grade classrooms.

From start to finish, this project took 26 school hours. It started with an early release day and ended the following month with an early release for the museum presentations. To kick off the PBL, students were visited by first responders: four firemen led by SBS parent Stephen Lee (one of the firemen/EMT was alumni Michael Arambaru ‘15). In addition, on presentation day students had a special visit by SBS parent Sherry Drinnon who is an ER Nurse for Memorial Hermann Hospital.

During the museum presentations, students acted as experts to provide information on how to survive specific disasters. Teams created a museum exhibit for parents and school/church personnel to demonstrate understanding of a specific disaster in Texas, the science behind the disaster--using math graphs and charts to demonstrate their findings, a narrative story about a “storm” in their life and a biblically based spiritual survival kit.

According to seventh grade teacher Leslie Kellam, “I was impressed by how hard the seventh graders worked on this project and how focused they were. It was fun to see teammates supporting each other using their gifts and talents, helping each other to meet deadlines and collaborating to create their amazing exhibits."