Students open the year-long course by redesigning campus recycling bins through empathy interviews and design thinking

FERNDALE, Mich. — This fall, Ferndale University High School (UHS) launched Project RISE, short for Real-world Interdisciplinary Skills & Experience, a new two-hour, project-based course that combines world history, science and English Language Arts into a single, hands-on learning experience for students.

The course is co-taught by a team of UHS teachers, Steve Boland, Sarah Rodgers, and Lauren Thomas, and invites students to explore real-world questions through meaningful, culturally responsive projects that connect classroom learning to real careers and community contexts. It's designed to build critical thinking, creativity, collaboration and communication skills alongside academic content, and to help students make connections across subject areas and engage with issues relevant to their lives and community.

“Project RISE gives our students a reason to care about the standards we’re teaching. When they’re redesigning something people actually use every day, the science stops being abstract,” said Lauren Thomas, a science teacher at UHS and one of the course's co-teachers.

For their first project, students are applying the design thinking process- empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test to redesign the recycling bins used in classrooms and throughout the UHS community. In early September, students conducted empathy interviews with UHS teachers to learn about their classrooms' recycling habits, space and style before beginning work on improved bin designs intended to be easier to use correctly and to keep more recyclable material out of the trash.

“This project and Project RISE as a whole lets students see themselves as active problem solvers, rather than just passive learners,”  said Steve Boland, a world history teacher at UHS and one of the course's co-teachers. “The design process requires that students listen and understand the problem first, which is the basis of any historical inquiry.

“Watching students translate an interview into a written design brief is exactly the kind of real-world writing we want them doing. It’s writing with a purpose and an audience beyond just a grade,” said Sarah Rodgers, an English teacher at UHS and one of the course's co-teachers.

Over the school year, Project RISE students will take on additional interdisciplinary projects, including designing a survival structure inspired by the strategies of early civilizations, planning a nutritious and culturally informed meal while studying human health across history, and engineering a Rube Goldberg device while examining industrialization and manufacturing. Each project asks students to draw evidence from history, science and literature to justify their design choices and present their findings, building skills aligned with world history, science and engineering, and English Language Arts standards.

“Project RISE is exactly the kind of learning experience we want for our students: connected, collaborative, and grounded in the real world. I’m proud of how our staff came together to build this course from the ground up,” said Julie Patterson, principal of UHS.

Photos from Project RISE classrooms will be shared as they become available.

About Ferndale Public Schools

Founded in 1887, Ferndale Public Schools serves approximately 3,100 students from the communities of Ferndale, Pleasant Ridge, Oak Park, Royal Oak Township and portions of Hazel Park. The district provides a comprehensive educational experience from early childhood through high school, offering rigorous academics, innovative learning opportunities, award-winning arts and athletics, career and technical education, and comprehensive social-emotional supports. Recognized for its commitment to equity, inclusion and student-centered learning, Ferndale Public Schools empowers every student to discover their potential, achieve academic success and become engaged members of their communities.

To learn more about Ferndale Public Schools, visit the website. To stay up to date on district news, events and announcements, visit the News page.