There are middle school projects that gain impact through collaboration with students outside your own classroom, such as estimating the average amount of water used per person per day. This problem takes on deeper relevance when averages are compared to those of classrooms around the country and the world. Other projects, such as finding the circumference of the Earth, require data input by geographically distant schools. 

To connect with and collaborate with classrooms interested in the same project, you can make use of online sites, even though you work in an offline classroom. You need Internet access to register for the project (free registration!), to find suggested teaching procedures, and to submit and retrieve data from other schools. But you can be offline while teaching the lessons, collecting and analyzing data, and presenting results. 

The Internet-based projects below are excellent samples of what’s available online for the offline classroom. If you know of similar projects, please share via this blog! 

Down the Drain: How Much Water Do You Use?  

In this project, students share information about water usage with other students from around the country and the world. Based on data collected by their household members and their classmates, students determine the average amount of water used by one person in a day. Students must develop a hypothesis, conduct an experiment, and present their results.

RoadKill 

If your school is located among rural roads, you and your students can collect roadkill data in your community for analysis and compare your data to other areas participating in the project. The site provides a detailed protocol for monitoring and reporting roadkill, a method of reporting data through the web, and access to data collected by all participants. The project crosses many disciplines, including environmental science education and data analysis.

The International Boiling Point Project

Students around the world boil water to discover what influences its boiling point. Is it room temperature, elevation, volume of water, or the heating device used? All you have to do is boil a bit of water, record a bit of information, and send it along to the site for inclusion in the database of results.

The Noon Day Project: Measuring the Circumference of the Earth 

 In the course of the project, students learn about Eratosthenes and his experiment, and then do a similar experiment themselves by collaborating with other schools. They learn the “why” of the measurements they’re taking, collect the data as precisely as possible, and submit their findings to the central site. By collaborating with a classroom in another state or even another country, they actually determine a good estimate of the Earth’s circumference. The site provides detailed instructions, activities, and reference materials.