11. Deeper Learning and the Future of Education

When eighth-grade students at King Middle School in Portland, Maine, began a curricular unit on electricity, they were given two guiding questions: “How do we capture and use nature’s energy?” and “How can you change your energy consumption to improve the world?” Teachers used these questions to integrate their course offerings and to provide a context for every assignment, classroom activity, field work experience, and project that the students did. The students quickly discovered that to understand how best to capture and use nature’s energy, they first had to master the concepts of energy and energy transfer presented in science class. They then applied what they were learning through an assignment to conduct an energy audit on their own homes, and they learned in math class how to measure energy consumption as well as how to calculate their own carbon footprints.