Julia Beerworth, 2025 Rowland Fellow
At Charlotte Central School (CCS) we have been shifting our culture toward a system that provides students with authentic Project-Based Learning (PBL) experiences. This work took root with a professional development trip by our Collaborative Working Group to High Tech High, where we saw firsthand how high-quality PBL practices can transform a learning environment. By bringing those insights back to CCS, we’re proving that rigor isn’t confined to traditional lesson plans — rigor can also be built into personalized projects with authentic, real-world relevance.
Thanks to my Rowland Fellowship, we launched Project Leaders in 2025 with the goal to empower 6th–8th graders to take on interest-based projects tied to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. In partnership with Shelburne Farms’ Cultivating Pathways to Sustainability program and UP for Learning, students used design thinking to lead initiatives ranging from teaching younger peers about sustainability to creating a beautiful mural representing peace and justice. At the end of the school year, they took their hard work to the state level, sharing their learning with other schools in Montpelier on the Statehouse Lawn.
“High-quality PBL practices can transform a learning environment.”
Electives are a time in the school day specifically designed for students to celebrate what they love. Through our elective program, C3, we now give middle schoolers more ownership of that learning. During the first year of my Fellowship, I had the privilege to co-lead a student group alongside an esteemed colleague to design interpretive signage for our campus watershed. In collaboration with the Lewis Creek Association and Greenleaf Design, Inc., our students created a lasting legacy on our grounds, transitioning from learners into teachers for the entire community.
“Our students created a lasting legacy on our grounds, transitioning from learners into teachers for the entire community.”
Building on the innovation coming from the teachers of our Collaborative Work Group, CCS also hosted its first in-school PBL exhibition. At the end of my first year as a Rowland Fellow, our library and classrooms came alive with projects reflecting our students’ creativity, collaboration, and hard work. The PBL exhibition reflected the incredible work of the Collaborative Work Group teachers who were brought together through my Rowland Fellowship. Highlights included literacy board games, electric dream houses, hydraulics projects, and an interdisciplinary Red Clover design project. Visitors also explored 4th-grade poetry, our watershed signage project, the UN Sustainability Projects, and vibrant artwork. Looking ahead, we hope to weave more of this project-based work directly into the classroom curriculum, maximizing the number of students who can benefit from these transformative learning experiences.
You can learn more about PBL at CCS and check out the project overviews from our exhibition in our new schoolwide PBL Roadmap.
