About Jim
Jim Bentley teaches 5th and 6th grade students in the Elk Grove Unified School District. He is passionate about integrating filmmaking and project based learning throughout the school day and across all subjects, especially environmental science. Bentley has served as a national trainer for the Center for Civic Education, specializing in the Project Citizen curriculum which teaches students how to monitor and responsibly influence public policies. He's recently begun working with EEI as a Teacher Ambassador. In 2011 Bentley received the American Civic Education Award for his work with students and teachers related to civics. In 2012 he received the Allan Hinderstein Award for his use of filmmaking in the classroom. You can follow Bentley and his students' adventures on Twitter by following Jim Bentley @Curiosity_Films, or check out his students' filmmaking by visiting their YouTube and Vimeo Channels, Curiosity Films.
If a teacher decides to adopt a project based learning (PBL) approach, even the Gold Standard Project Based Learning unit, the most comprehensive tier of PBL strategies, starts with a simple question: What’s the content that teachers will use to foster a successful classroom? There is no shortage of sources from which to choose: individual state […]
It’s January. The holidays are over. A new year has begun. It’s the time when people who love the cold or snow are relishing winter while folks like myself are pining for the light and warmth of spring. It’s no coincidence the first month of the new year is named January. Janus was the Roman […]
I spent the third week of October with my 6th grade students in the Santa Cruz Mountains, learning about poison oak and banana slugs, compost and food waste, gardening and invasive plant species, and how ecosystems change as one moves higher in elevation. We ate Redwood Sorrel (tastes like green apples), munched on Douglas Fir […]