PBL9 Examines Resiliency in Literature and Biology

In their latest project, PBL9 students studied the ability to bounce back, asking the essential question, “How does trauma, tragedy and adversity build resilience in individuals and society?”

Students answered this question in two ways: examining tragedy in fiction and finding resilience in biology. Students read books such as Crying in H-Mart, The Astonishing Color of After, The Grace Year, and A Long Way Gone and examined the characters for traits of resilience after dealing with trauma.

Students conducted research to connect real life events/social issues presented in their novels. For example, students reading All American Boys researched the Black Lives Matter Movement to make connections to what the main character experiences.

In their experiments, students tested the resiliency of basil in different temperatures, the recovery of water fleas after ingesting caffeine, melting glaciers, coral bleaching and the environments near disasters such as Chernobyl, Hurricane Katrina and the 2020 California wildfires.

Following their research, the students created separate podcasts examining the resilience in their book and experiments. Listen on Spotify>