Project-Based Learning in Action at YouthBuild Lawrence

This year, YouthBuild Lawrence has added a project-based block to the student’s schedule where they apply their learning to solve real world problems. Some of the skills that students were learning were research skills, map-reading skills, topography, team-work, cooperation and oral-speaking from presenting their work.

Johanka Heredia, pictured left, was part of recreating a map of the United States. This project was part of a larger project that included biographies of famous Americans and a timeline of major events that led to the formation of our Country as we know it today. 

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YouthBuild Lawrence builds low-income housing units in the community to combat poverty and homelessness. Pictured here are seven of the students who worked on a scale model of the alternative school’s new project. Students did all the calculations and mathematical functions to create the three story proportional model from information on the architectural blueprints.  
 
Additional projects that students have worked on include life-skills projects, career projects, and community service projects. Currently students are analyzing their communication style, creating PowerPoints identifying the path to their chosen career in the near future, and analyzing the societal cost of addictions. YouthBuild Lawrence seeks to educate students to be independent and critical thinkers who become successful young leaders and powerful agents of change in their communities while simultaneously building meaningful and self-sufficient identities for themselves. 

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