Traveling from the Classroom - A Lesson Plan for Teachers

Toward the end of the school year, student focus can be a great challenge. I always found that my students started looking more through the windows than they did toward the board as the spring months rolled around and summer was on the horizon. To remedy this, I scheduled my last weeks of school as a student-centered travel-based PBL (project-based learning).

Teaching about travel can be a great Geography skills review, but also helps students dream about their future possibilities to set life goals.

The premise of my assignments were very easy…

If you could go anywhere on a dream vacation, where would it be?

Now, I’ve done this activity over and over again. Each time, I work my hardest to make it a reality! And once I’ve completed all parts, including the actual travel, I start all over.

While my original goal was to encourage student review of my geographic and historic content, the real lesson became in goal-setting and dream-planning! Both are great lessons to learn, and can be incredible motivators for student success.

So, as your school year starts to wind down, and your students start to wind up, give them a project to work on that can take them far beyond the classroom. Let them travel the world!

Here are just a few options for a PBL for your students:
Geography World Travel Project (FREE!)
U.S. Travel Project
World Travel Project

Teaching about travel can be a great Geography skills review, but also helps middle and high school students dream about their future possibilities to set life goals. #teaching

Happy Teaching!