Encourage tinkering with ideas, relationships, connections. Set up situations where students have to find information not readily available in school texts. Provide opportunity for students to design open-ended explorations of the concept. Provide multiple options so students can plan a unique "proof" of learning.

Students design a pamphlet on AIDS.

Objective: To have the students take what they have learned about viruses and AIDS and use that learning to design a pamphlet to instruct middle school students about these topics.

Activity: Working in small groups, students design a pamphlet on AIDS with facts and simple explanation of how it attacks for distribution to middle school children. The students are encouraged to use their particular skills and talents recognizing that one student may be good at organizing, another at simplifying potentially complex information, another may like to draw and letter.

Assessment: Quality of student pamphlets; their ability to describe the virus and how it works.