Project-Based Science (PBS) is an effort that began in 1991 at the University of Michigan School of Education. It was originally funded by the National Science foundation, and currently involves hundreds of K-12 science teachers in Michigan. The goal of the PBS group is to improve the way science classes are taught by involving students in finding solutions to authentic questions through extended inquiry, collaboration and use of technology.

PBS Perspective

Some good science teachers have always taught something like Project-Based Science, and some aspects of it might be very familiar. However, we believe that in many ways it is like nothing that many teachers have done before. We talk about PBS in terms of five essential features . . .


PBS Resources

PIViT is a project-planning software tool now being used by over 2000 educators across the country.
CaPPs is a multimedia library of video and commentary from PBS classrooms.
The PS Net (Project-Support Network) grew out of an effort to make PIViT available and encourage the sharing of PIViT projects between teachers.
We also have a brief PBS bibliography available for your reading pleasure.

PBS Links (we get by with a little help from our friends)

We cut many of our teeth as part of a professional-development partnership with Edmonson Middle School in Ypsilanti. Their web site is student designed.

Community High School here in Ann Arbor is pushing the limits of what technology and authentic science can do to transform the American high school. Their server and web site is wholly maintained by its students.

We do a lot of research collaboration with the Hi-C group here at Michigan, based out of the College of Engineering. The work at Community is an example of that collaboration. The Hi-C group has an Investigator's workshop that may be of interest.

The research efforts of Berkeley's Computer as Learning Partner group have found their way into our ideology and practice.

Our research efforts have found their way into the ideology and practice of the Teaching and Learning Project of the University of Michigan Digital Library.

The Ann Arbor Public School system is currently in the process of developing a Science Department web site; it should be online by the late spring or early summer of 1996

The Michigan Department of Education has helped us extend our reach statewide.

One of our favorite web sites devoted to environmental education is EE-Link.


For more information about PBS, you can send a message to Joseph Krajcik, one of PBS's four original co-primary investigators (the other three are Phyllis Blumenfeld, Ronald Marx, and Elliot Soloway). You may also order a videotape which will give you an introduction to PBS. You can order the tape for $7.50 by contacting Kathy Metcalf.

Home pages of some PBS people:


this site last updated on 7/14/96