On the day

1. Traditional scientific project

Planning phase (approximately 2 hours)

Either, all the IB students in the school meet together first and whoever is in overall charge gives a short introduction explaining what the Group 4 Project is, what the aims are and how it is assessed before they break into their smaller groups, or they start off in the smaller groups and each teacher in charge gives the introduction to their own group.

Once in their smaller groups one student should be appointed the chairperson and one the scribe and they have a brainstorming session. Students should be given two minutes to shout out any ideas they have and the scribe writes them down. Following a discussion a consensus is reached on what would be practical to investigate. For example they might wish to look at the school’s barbeque. There should be a clear goal to aim for. In this case it might be ‘Designing a better school barbeque’. They will then decide which sub-groups could do what to achieve the ultimate goal. In this example Design technologists could look at the design of the barbeque, Physicists the heat transfer, Chemists the type of fuel used or pollutants produced and Biologists the bacteria in the food and how well it is cooked. Remember though, that they do not have to do the action stage in their own subject so it could be much looser than in this example.

Some schools do not let the students choose their own goal but choose it for them. This might be more efficient in terms of getting a product but it is not the product that is important. I think students should be allowed to fail as in this case it really does not matter. It is the process they go through in working together as a team that is important, not whether they achieve meaningful results. I also think that students will enjoy it much more if they have a sense of ownership of their own project. The only time when teachers must step in is when the project that students come up with is inherently unsafe, unethical, has serious environmental consequences or is simply impractical.

Action phase (approximately 6 hours)

However the groups are divided up for the action phase they should work in small teams (the sub-groups). Four is probably the ideal number. The reason for this is that in a small team everyone has the chance to contribute. They will need to decide themselves how to go about finding out whatever it is they are researching. They can do traditional practical work but remember the Group 4 Project is also addressing Aim 7 so the use of the Internet, spreadsheets and graphing could all play a useful part here. The emphasis should be on working as a team and working towards a goal. The goal itself is not critical; it is the process of working towards it that counts. Because students often go around the school gathering information it can be helpful to warn other teachers, the librarian and other support staff that they may well get pestered during the day.

Evaluation phase (approximately 2 hours)

At the end of the action phase students in each team should summarise their findings then report back to the rest of the group. There are many ways they can do this. They can take it in turns to give short presentations, they can make posters to stick around the wall or they can build a webpage on the school intranet and communicate all their findings electronically. Once they have the input from all the teams some groups then make up a powerpoint presentation which they then show to an invited audience of parents and other students etc.

The final part of the evaluation is reflection. Students should be asked to reflect on the whole process and then complete a statement (see next link).

2. Technological project

One of the ultimate aims of the day is for them to work as a team. If you look at the different aspects of team work it can be easier to manage if they have a technological task to solve. For this reason some schools have moved away from a scientific project to a purely technological project. If you look in the IB Chemistry Subject Guide on pages 185 -189 there is nothing to say that this cannot be done. It clearly says in the summary that the Group 4 Project involves students working together on a scientific or technological topic although it does slightly contradict this on page 187 where it states under ‘Types of project’, “While addressing aims 7,8 and 10 the project must be based on science or its applications.

What these schools do is give the students challenges. The day still follows the same format of the three phases and the Planning and Evaluation phases will be the same. Again they work in small teams and during the planning stage they have to plan a task with a clear goal that they will try to achieve during the action phase. Often this will involve them being outside. For example, can they work as a team to build a bridge over a stream using only a limited amount of certain materials? It is important that they do not set themselves tasks that are too simple or have only one clear solution. Because their action is unlikely to be subject based the teacher should probably ensure that there is a good mixing of subjects and levels in each team and that they do not just work with their friends.

A good source of ideas for these sorts of tasks is the Great Egg Race. This was a game show from the 1980 but many schools and colleges have developed their own versions which you can find online.