From Global Goals to Local Action: Project Heart Meets the IB Exhibition

Overview

Jen McCoy is the IB Coordinator at Riffenburg Elementary in Fort Collins, where the fifth-grade year culminates in the IB Exhibition – a year-long inquiry project built around the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Project Heart gave her students the framework they needed to move from caring about an issue to actually doing something about it.

How the Curriculum Was Used

Jen integrates Project Heart’s time, talent, and treasure framework directly into the Exhibition process, giving students the structure and language to translate personal passion into real action. Project Heart doesn’t replace the IB framework; it gives students the practical tools to bring it to life. Twenty student groups completed action projects this past year.

What Students Did

The Helping Artists team used one member’s love of sewing to make pillowcases for hospitalized children through Ryan’s Cases for Smiles. Climate Collaborators organized a plastic bag collection drive and promoted it through an art installation made from the collected bags. The Pollution Solution group presented to the younger grades to launch a school-wide playground cleanup. The Legacy Project group – awarded an OtterCares Impact Grant – transformed the school’s central pod into a visible learning space displaying ongoing student action projects.

Why It Matters

When students connect learning to real change, it sticks and becomes part of who they are. The Legacy Learning Space that those students built is still there – a visible reminder that at Riffenburg, kids don’t just learn about the world. They take action and improve it.