Staff Spotlight - Kimberly Jaeger: Health Teacher Uses Project-Based Learning for Brain Health

This year, eighth graders are learning about Brain Health – how to keep your brain physically healthy to help avoid diseases like dementia and Alzheimer’s later in life. It’s just one topic, along with things like substance abuse and good choices, that get squeezed into a 9-week health class. Middle School Health Teacher Kimberly Jaeger is piloting a way to get the most learning out of the Brain Health curriculum and will share it as an option for teachers statewide. 

Jaeger has been incorporating project-based learning into her classroom – meaning that the students have to take part in what they’re learning and turn it into a project.

She tested the waters in the fall with another set of students for Red Ribbon Week, which is a week to focus on the dangers of drug use. You might have noticed the red ribbons tied around trees and signs around the outside of the school. Students also did a podcast (check out the episode on the SMWay Podcast). That went so well that Jaeger decided to use it for the new Brain Health curriculum. 

This spring, Addison, Ben, and Mia, three of her students, chose to write a children’s book on Brain Health. The project involved skills that students need no matter the subject: research, creativity, and teamwork. 

“We had a bunch of pictures of cartoon brains doing activities. We thought it’d be easier for kids to stay focused if they saw the brains doing the activity,” Addison said. One example is exercise, said Mia, for maintaining brain health throughout life. 

“I’ve learned how hard it is to have to make a story with the information itself,”  added Ben. “Making a kid’s book was harder because you just can’t write an essay about it. You have to try to make it more attainable to the younger audience.”

“What I did is I took the curriculum as it is on paper, and I had to make it come alive for my students, for engagement, for myself,” Jaeger said. 

Jaeger gave her students four different options for a project they could do, and one day a week during the 9-week Health class, the teams met to work on them. 

“I created a choice board and the students got to see a visual with a description, one being a podcast, the second one was a TikTok-style video, and then the third choice was a children's book. I did leave it a little open-ended as a fourth choice, Jaeger said. 

“I didn't want to limit their creativity. So if they really had something else that they'd like to try or do, they could. Then, based on the topic they selected, they had to figure out how best they wanted to advocate for the importance of brain health from the research they did with their topic.”

Jaeger said she thinks that creating a project for another audience puts some distance between the sometimes heavy topic (most of the students knew someone with dementia or Alzheimer's Disease) but also understand the topic better and the habits to maintain brain health.

“The lessons kind of help tie it back to their own mental health. So I think it's easier for my students to attach to the topic.”

Jaeger is going to take what she has learned from using these project-based learning experiences in her classroom and design a way teachers across Wisconsin could teach Brain Health using project-based learning.

“I get excited about things. It's kind of me, my personality,” she said. “I'm always trying new things that excite me. Because if it excites me, right, hopefully, you want your kids to be excited to learn and build those skills, too.”