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Project Sample & Commentary: Caring for your Campus Lawn Page Page 1 | 2

The students evaluated the system using quantitative measures. These were applied both to the various aspects of soil quality and to the economics-related aspects of the system.
b Communication Tools and Techniques: The student prepares a formal written proposal or report to an organization beyond the school; that is, the student:
• organizes the information in the proposal or report in a logical way appropriate to its purpose;
• produces the proposal or report in a format similar to that used in professionally produced documents for a similar purpose and audience.

The project led to the production of a formal written report to the director of the Grounds and Maintenance Department for the school district. The report sets out clearly the procedures the students followed and their findings. It adopts a memorandum format appropriate to communicating a technical report of this sort, particularly one produced effectively in-house, and it is written in a style consistent with a formal memorandum.

The students also those the format of a memorandum for the pamphlet they prepared to communicate the project findings to grounds keepers, again an appropriate format for this purpose and context. In this document, however, they adjusted the style, making it less discursive and more direct. This was appropriate, given the purpose of the pamphlet which was to provide directions. The information is set out clearly and logically, consistent with its purpose.

This memorandum was published in the national edition of the New Standards Performance Standards™ (1997) as an example of work that illustrates the expectations for a functional document (b) at the high school level.

These documents are presented as finished work, as is appropriate to their purposes and audiences. The polish of these documents can be compared with the errors that appear in the Proposal to the Principal and with errors in some of the students’ working documents.

c Tools and Techniques for Working With Others: The student completes a task in response to a commission from a client; that is, the student:

• negotiates with the client to arrive at a plan for meeting the client’s needs that is acceptable to the client, achievable within available resources, and includes agreed-upon criteria for successful completion;
• monitors client satisfaction with the work in progress and makes adjustments accordingly;
• evaluates the result in terms of the negotiated plan and the client’s evaluation of the result.


The client for this work was the director of the Grounds and Maintenance Department for the school district. The memorandum to the director documents communication between him and the students during the course of the project. But there is no evidence documenting negotiation of the plan or documenting the monitoring of the director’s satisfaction with the work in progress. The pamphlet the students wrote for grounds keepers, setting out procedures for lawn maintenance, appears under the title of the Grounds and Maintenance Department, which suggests that the director was satisfied with the students’ report and accepted their recommendations.

 

 

b Problem Solving: The student troubleshoots problems in the operation of a system in need of repair or devises and tests ways of improving the effectiveness of a system in operation; that is, the student:

• explains the structure of the system in terms of its:
  – logic, sequences, and control;
  – operating principles, that is, the mathematical, scientific and/or organizational principles underlying the system;
• analyzes the way the system works, taking account of its functional, aesthetic, social, environmental, and commercial requirements, as appropriate, and using a relevant kind of modeling or systems analysis;
• evaluates the operation of the system, using qualitative methods and/or quantitative measurements of performance;
• develops and tests strategies to put the system back in operation and/or optimize its performance;
• evaluates the effectiveness of the strategies for improving the system and supports the evaluation with evidence.
The students made recommendations for improved techniques for managing the system based on analysis of fertilizers.
The students submitted their report to the director of the Grounds and Maintenance Department and produced a set of procedures for revised practices in lawn maintenance to be used by grounds keepers, which was published by the Grounds and Maintenance Department.

This project illustrates an appropriate task for the high school level. Its scope extended beyond the school and immediate community of the students. It involved consideration of a range of factors including implications for cost. Finally, the project led to changes in practice.

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