The Big Idea: Start with what students can see

In this week of our fall series, we’re looking at fall phenomena as an invitation to reimagine the curriculum.

A leaf pile is not just a seasonal decoration. It is evidence of change, energy, weather, biology, chemistry, decomposition, human decision-making, and place. A migrating bird, a seed pod, an earlier sunset, a slippery sidewalk, or the first morning frost can become the starting point for rigorous, connected learning.

What if the most powerful curriculum resource this fall is already outside your classroom door?

When students notice something real, they have a reason to wonder. When they wonder, they have a reason to investigate. And when their investigation connects to a challenge in their community, learning becomes more than content coverage. It becomes agency in action.

This is the heart of transdisciplinary inquiry: not adding one more activity to the school day, but using the world around students to connect the learning already expected of them.

Why it matters: Phenomena make learning visible, local, and consequential

Phenology, the study of recurring seasonal events, gives students a natural way to investigate patterns, cycles, cause and effect, interdependence, and change over time. These are not isolated science concepts. They are foundational ways of making sense of the world.

Research on science learning consistently points toward the value of authentic observation, student-generated questions, and repeated engagement with real data. In their work on campus tree phenology, Long and Wyse (2012) demonstrated how local seasonal change can support student-designed investigation. Students are not merely told that plants respond to environmental conditions; they collect evidence and build explanations from what they observe.

Place-based education strengthens that work by positioning the local environment and community as meaningful learning sites. A systematic review by Yemini, Engel, and Ben Simon (2023) found that place-based approaches commonly draw on inquiry, outdoor learning, and community connection. The schoolyard does not need to be pristine wilderness. A sidewalk tree, drainage ditch, garden bed, or patch of grass can offer enough complexity to activate curiosity.

Fall also offers a powerful bridge to larger environmental ideas. Students can begin with the familiar timing of leaf color or grass growth and gradually connect those observations to climate patterns, biodiversity, and ecosystem change. Citizen-science research has shown that even simple observations made near home can support practical science learning and meaningful data analysis (Van Haeften et al., 2021).

This is where the five PAST Hacking School Pillars become especially useful:

• Student agency: Students choose which fall phenomenon to investigate, what evidence to collect, or which question to pursue.

• Culturally relevant education: Students connect seasonal change to family traditions, neighborhood knowledge, foodways, celebrations, and lived experience.

• Mastery learning: Students revise their explanations as new observations challenge or deepen their thinking.

• Transdisciplinary teaching: Science, mathematics, literacy, social studies, art, and engineering work together around a shared phenomenon.

• Problem-based learning: Students use evidence to understand and address a real challenge in their school or community.

The result is a learner-centered environment where confidence and rigor reinforce each other. Students are not choosing between “creative” learning and “academic” learning. They are practicing the habits that make both possible: noticing carefully, asking better questions, working with others, using evidence, and persisting through uncertainty.

One example: A leaf pile becomes a schoolwide investigation

Imagine that students notice the same thing every autumn: leaves collect along one section of the school sidewalk. The pile becomes wet, slippery, and difficult to move. It also attracts insects, holds moisture, and eventually breaks down into soil.

That one observation can support a meaningful learning progression across grade levels.

Elementary: Notice, sort, describe, and explain

Elementary students might begin as season detectives. They collect observations rather than simply collecting leaves.

Students can:

• Sort leaves by color, shape, size, texture, or vein pattern.

• Create a daily or weekly leaf-color chart.

• Measure the length and width of leaves.

• Count how many leaves gather in different locations.

• Sketch the same tree over several weeks.

• Write sensory descriptions of the leaf pile.

• Design a small shelter for a toy animal using leaves and other natural materials.

Here, the design-thinking process begins with empathy and observation. Students consider the needs of people, plants, insects, and animals sharing the same space. They define a simple challenge: How might we make this area safer while still respecting the life supported by the leaf litter?

The mathematics is real. The literacy is purposeful. The science is visible. The students’ ideas matter.

Middle school: Investigate patterns and test explanations

Middle school students can move from noticing to systematic investigation.

They might adopt several locations around the school and track:

• Leaf accumulation over time.

• Moisture and temperature in shaded and sunny areas.

• Wind direction and its relationship to leaf movement.

• The rate at which different leaves decompose.

• The presence of insects, fungi, or other decomposers.

• The effectiveness of different collection or redistribution strategies.

Students can create seed-dispersal models, test how wind moves different shapes, or use simple chromatography to investigate the pigments hidden in leaves. They can represent their findings in graphs and use the evidence to explain why some areas accumulate more leaf litter than others.

The problem becomes more complex: How might we manage leaf buildup in a way that improves safety, supports decomposition, and protects the school’s soil?

This is mastery learning in practice. Students may produce an initial explanation, compare it with new data, receive feedback, and revise their model. The goal is not a one-time correct answer. The goal is a stronger, evidence-supported explanation.

High school: Connect local data to systems and community decisions

High school students can extend the investigation into ecology, climate, infrastructure, and community design.

They might compare this year’s leaf-drop dates with observations from previous years. They could examine the relationship between temperature, daylight, precipitation, and decomposition. They might map drainage patterns around the school and explore how leaf accumulation affects stormwater flow.

A student team could partner with facilities staff to design a fall grounds-management plan. Another team might investigate whether leaves should be removed, redistributed into garden beds, composted, or used as habitat. A third team could develop a public-facing report explaining the ecological tradeoffs behind each option.

This work activates problem-based learning and transdisciplinary teaching more deeply. Students use biology to understand decomposition, mathematics to analyze data, engineering to prototype solutions, writing to communicate recommendations, and civic reasoning to consider who each decision affects.

The design-thinking cycle gives the work structure:

1. Empathize: Learn from students, custodians, gardeners, families, and the organisms living in the schoolyard.

2. Define: Identify a specific fall-related challenge.

3. Ideate: Generate multiple possible responses.

4. Prototype: Build a model, map, collection system, or communication campaign.

5. Test and iterate: Gather feedback, examine results, and improve the solution.

The leaf pile has not replaced the curriculum. It has made the curriculum matter.

One reflection question

What seasonal change is already happening in your school community that could become the shared phenomenon for deeper student inquiry?

Try This

Take students outside for ten minutes with one instruction: “Notice something that is changing.”

Do not begin with a vocabulary list or a predetermined conclusion. Ask students to record one observation, one pattern, and one possible explanation. Collect their ideas publicly, then select one phenomenon to revisit throughout the week.

That small shift, from delivering information to making space for noticing, can activate student agency immediately.

Continue the work on Thursday

On Thursday, we’ll move from possibility to implementation with a step-by-step guide for turning one fall phenomenon into a standards-aligned learning experience.

The implementation piece will include:

• A simple phenomenon-selection process.

• Grade-band adaptations for elementary, middle, and high school.

• A question-building and data-collection routine.

• Design-thinking prompts for moving from observation to action.

• Before-and-after examples of a traditional fall lesson transformed into a transdisciplinary investigation.

Because the goal is not to take students outside once. The goal is to help them see that the world outside is full of questions worth pursuing, and that they can answer some of them.  If you want access to Thursday’s Implementation Guide – join us here!

References

Bell, S. (2010). Project-based learning for the 21st century: Skills for the future. The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, 83(2), 39–43.

Long, T., & Wyse, S. (2012). A season for inquiry: Investigating phenology in local campus trees. Science, 335(6068), 932–933.

National Research Council. (2012). A framework for K–12 science education: Practices, crosscutting concepts, and core ideas. The National Academies Press.

NGSS Lead States. (2013). Next generation science standards: For states, by states. The National Academies Press.

Van Haeften, S., Milic, A., Addison-Smith, B., Butcher, C., & Davies, J. M. (2021). Grass Gazers: Using citizen science as a tool to facilitate practical and online science learning for secondary school students during the COVID-19 lockdown. Ecology and Evolution, 11(8), 3488–3500.

Yemini, M., Engel, L., & Ben Simon, A. (2023). Place-based education: A systematic review of literature. Educational Review, 77(2), 640–660.