The Arlington Tech program at ACC is centered on Project-Based Learning, and every year, each grade-level collaborates on a year-end cross-curricular project. They’re known as the “Stones”, starting with the freshman Cornerstone, sophomore Keystone, junior Arch

stone, and finally for the seniors, Capstone. 

For the freshman Cornerstone of the 2023-2024 school year, ninth graders have learned about food insecurity across all subject areas. The goal of this project is to make our community a better place by understanding the importance of food insecurity.

All students were in a group and presented on those content areas (math, science, history, english, engineering, P.E.) based on a food insecurity topic. Six teams have been selected to participate in the Cornerstone Town Hall meeting on April 26, 2024 that will be held in the Commons. There will be all 9th graders and the Town Hall panelists who are experts from the food insecurity sustainability field to judge the teams. From those six teams, two of them got elected to compete in the Maryland Youth Institute Competition, which is a food insecurity competition on the local and global level. The students in the teams  that were elected are James Padilla, Alexis Barnes, JJ Jones, Adrianna Daghesh, Silas Peterlin, Tomas Christman, Oleg Kaitov, and Iffat Naielah.

“When students invest in their learning through PBL, the takeaway is more impactful. I think this project is important because it allows students to work across all content areas  to create one project,” stated Dr. Thomas, one of ACC’s PBL Coordinators.

This year, all of the teachers, including Dr. Thomas, are well pleased with the results of the Cornerstone project. How the hydroponic plants grew and the reflection presentations all stunned the panelists with the students’ determination throughout the whole process.