Build the Ripple, not the rubric.
Give students the experience of making something real and the confidence to know they can do it again.
Keep your Sunday nights.
Ripple gives teachers a simple weekly rhythm that transforms student curiosity into meaningful, community-rooted projects. Students take ownership of the work. You spend more time coaching and less time chasing engagement.
✓ Works with the curriculum you already teach
✓ One simple rhythm for the entire year
✓ Inspired by real classrooms, not theory
Ships AUGUST 2026. limited quantity available.
Everyday, millions of students spend countless hours creating incredible work.
The question is:
Where does it go?
Our students spend hours researching, designing, writing, creating, and solving.
Most of that work ends with a grade.
Then it's forgotten.
What if school work became real work?
What if more of that effort remained in the communities where students already live?
What if learning didn't just demonstrate understanding. What if learning left something behind?
What if students left your class thinking:
I can notice something.
I can follow an idea.
I can find people who know what I don't and build relationships.
I can make something real.
And when this project ends, I can do it again.
That's the kind of learning that doesn't end when the semester does.
What is Ripple?
Ripple is a classroom design toolkit built around a deck of cards, four seasonal field guides, and a simple weekly rhythm that helps students turn curiosity into real-world work.
📦 Ripple Deck Kit
🗂 Four Seasonal Field Guides
📓 Student Journal
📅 Monday-by-Monday Teaching Rhythm
🖥 Classroom Slides & Resources
Use it every Monday, once in month, once a semester, flexible and reusable all year long.
When students find work worth caring about, the questions change.
"When is this due?" —> "Could we build one for every elementary school?"
"How long does this have to be?" —> "Can I email the mayor?"
"Is this for a grade?" —> "I talked to my grandma last night and she has an idea."
"Can we be done?" —> "Can we keep working on this over the summer?"
START WITH THE RIPPLE DECK KIT.
Add the field guides when you’re ready for a full year.
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The Ripple Deck — four interconnected card types that help students notice opportunities, uncover community assets, build partnerships, and generate meaningful project ideas.
Quick Start Guide — everything you need to facilitate your very first Ripple experience.
Classroom Slides — ready-to-use visuals that guide students through each activity.
Ripple Zine — stories, inspiration, and practical tips from real classrooms.
Student Handouts - helps facilitate the design build.
Whether you teach English, Biology, Government, Art, or Advisory, etc. the deck is designed to spark conversations that lead to meaningful work.
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The Deck Kit helps you begin.
The Field Guides help you build a year.
Inside you'll find:
Four seasonal guides (can be used as quarter guides or unit guides) that gradually deepen student work Notice —> Connect —> Follow —> Build
Weekly classroom rhythm and pacing
Student journal activities
Reflection prompts
Project examples
Facilitation tips
Extension ideas
Ready-to-use classroom resources
The Field Guides transform Ripple from a great activity into a year-long project-building experience
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Ripple was originally designed in a high school English classroom, but it now supports teachers across disciplines.
Great for:
English Language Arts
Science
Social Studies
Government
Art & Design
Advisory
Interdisciplinary learning
Recommended for grades 7–12, college, and adult learning.
You can use Ripple as:
a single lesson
a short inquiry
a semester-long project
or the rhythm for an entire school year.
No prior project-based learning experience is required.
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Students sit in groups of four.
Each group begins with six cards.
They start by sharing something they care about in their community.
As the cards circulate, unexpected connections begin to emerge between students' interests, local people, places, and possibilities.
By the end of one class period, every group has the beginnings of several authentic project ideas.
No worksheets. No predetermined outcomes. Just structured curiosity.
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Not at all.
Ripple was designed for teachers who want meaningful learning without needing to redesign everything they already do.
Some teachers use Ripple once a month.
Others dedicate one day each week.
Others build an entire year around it.
The framework grows with your comfort level.
You're the teacher who already suspects your classroom could do more.
This works for any content area, any class, any context — high school or college. Standards emerge through the learning, connection, and research students already do.
Any content area, grades 9–12 or college-level
School clubs, advisories/homerooms, or design innovation teams
Your lesson plans feel less relevant than they used to
You want a screen-free activity that builds real collaboration
You want students applying what you teach to immediate, community-based action
Instructional coaches supporting teams who want a shared framework
Suggested age 13+, but you know your students.
Place-Based, Real Projects are awesome, but they aren’t even the end point.
The students’ confidence to generate real change again and again, is.
The first time, students build a project.
Over time, students build a way of seeing themselves.
AN ADMINISTRATOR'S approval: “This project has provided a valuable, rewarding, and real-world learning opportunity for students. Initiatives that have originated from this project have had a significant impact on the school and provide an authentic and engaging experience for the students. As a principal, I had the opportunity to interact with many students on their projects and their passion and enthusiasm to create meaningful change in their school and community was inspiring!”
- Dr. Paul Lucas
A Parent's approval: “Ripple is an exceptional program that takes students out of the comfort of the classroom and into their community in pursuit of a meaningful project. It provides a platform for students to really dig in – to research options, explore possibilities, and determine solutions. Through the process, students also learn how to consult and communicate with adults (and with their peers) – an aspect of the program that I really love. I appreciate how Ripple prompts students to consider their connection with their community and to find ways to make a difference.
I witnessed the success of this program both as a parent and stakeholder. Because students identified a need within the community, the school district is now reassessing their choice of food sourcing and offerings in an effort to provide healthier options for the entire student body. And a thriving native pollinator garden now resides by the local library in a space that was once a sterile, heavily-mulched flower bed.”
-Bitty C. STUDENT APPROVED
when students were asked which unit of the year they found most valuable and why:
“The thing I found most valuable overall was the Ripple project. Despite there often being some delays and confusion about the next steps in terms of what I should do personally, I feel like when it comes together, and you get your idea rolling, being able to produce something that you are passionate truly is an excellent idea. “
“I would like to clarify that all the novel units were very interesting but it’s not like they were a new experience like the Ripple project which forced me to operate in an entirely new way.”
“To me, doing the Ripple Research Project was very valuable as I was able to get started early on my Gold Award Project for Girl Scouts. I think if it weren't for the Ripple Project I wouldn't have gotten so far into my project.”
“I found the Ripple project the most valuable because it help us shift from doing things for a grade to actually being passionate about an assignment to do in class and it gave us the freedom to explore.”
“The Ripple Project. This project was super unique to any English class I’ve ever been in. It encouraged me to my community and it produced a ton of awesome projects, like Nash’s documentary and Andrew’s fitness program. In no other class have I had to actually go out of my way to do good for the people around me, so that is why this project was the best.”
“I think the Ripple project was the most valuable because it combined every aspect that is found in a successful school year, with easy-to-understand instructions and many possibilities for success. “
Here's what students have built.
Every Ripple classroom looks different because every community is different.
The projects don't begin with assignments.
They begin with something a student can't stop thinking about.
A grandmother's story.
A favorite swimming hole.
A dark night sky.
A neighbor with an incredible skill.
A forgotten trail.
A sport they love.
A patch of woods.
A neighborhood tradition.
A forgotten building.
A place that feels full of possibility.
Ripple gives that curiosity somewhere to grow
Today: Over 250 student-led projects across Northeast Ohio over the past 5 years from one classroom.
Next year? Let’s at least double that with projects across the nation!
Imagine the impact!
Where will your students leave their mark?
When school work becomes real work, everyone wins.
Win WIn WIn
FOR STUDENTS:
Students become empowered builders of their own communities.
They learn to notice what's needed IRL, follow their curiosity, collaborate with others, and leave something behind that matters.
FOR TEACHERS:
Teaching becomes lighter.
Not because it matters less—
because students begin carrying more of the thinking.
You spend less time chasing engagement and more time coaching ideas.
You finish the year with stories, partnerships, and tangible evidence of why your work matters.
FOR COMMUNITIES:
Communities become classrooms.
Students don't just learn about their place.
They contribute to it.
Every project strengthens the relationships between schools and the people who call those places home.
made by a teacher. still in the classroom.
I've been teaching high school English for 19 years.
At the same time I was founding a nonprofit for catalyzing a bioregional textile industry, which meant I was mapping nodes, finding assets, imagining combinations that didn't exist yet but absolutely could. Building something real with my community.
And every day I'd walk back into my classroom and watch my students do brilliant thinking that went nowhere.
Same intellectual moves. Completely different stakes. Students were practicing instead of really doing. We were squandering an immense amount of effort just to give out grades.
I couldn't unsee it.
So I built them a way to see the nodes, touch the combinations, find the edges where possibility lives.
I'm still using it. Still in the classroom. Still watching it work.
— Jess BoekeCo-founder, Rust Belt Fibershed | 19 years, 11th grade Honors English
Featured Products
The Ripple Deck Kit is the hands-on starting point for the Ripple framework. Through six thoughtfully designed card types, students uncover community assets, explore local opportunities, generate project ideas, and build meaningful work together.
Includes:
Ripple Deck with six card types: Longing, Kin, Lens, System, Action, and Creative Constraint
Premium storage box built for years of classroom use
Ready-to-use classroom slides you can customize for your students
Teacher facilitation guide to confidently lead your first Ripple experience
Quick Start Guide to help you get going right away
Use the Deck Kit on its own for individual lessons and short inquiries, or pair it with the Year-Long Field Guides for a complete classroom experience.
Use the button below to add the Year-Long Field Guides and save $7 by bundling!
Everything you need to run Ripple from the first week of school through a final showcase broken into four Field Guides: Notice, Connect, Follow, Build:
The full year-long Monday rhythm then four eight-week quarters, each building on the last:
Q1 — Notice: building belonging, somatic and support practices, noticing community assets, playing with systems thinking
Q2 — Connect: water metaphors, deepening connections in the community, fine-tuning real longings for what students want to see change
Q3 — Follow: following research rabbit holes toward the most compelling question
Q4 — Build: building the actual project, bringing in key stakeholders, learning to pitch, understanding the ripple effect of action, and using agency to build a better world right in the community
120- page Teacher Guide with facilitation notes for every session
27- page Student Journal, ready to print or assign digitally
Opt-in to Get weekly updates and resources from the creator using these field guides in her own classroom.
Built from nearly two decades in an actual classroom- tried and true!
THIS GUIDE IS DIGITAL AND IS BEST USED WITH THE RIPPLE DECK, NOT INCLUDED.
Use the button below to bundle with the Ripple Deck Kit and save $7 on your order.
ADD BOTH TO YOUR CART AND SAVE $7 AT CHECKOUT
WHY RIPPLE? WHY NOW? The world our students are entering has changed. Information is abundant. Artificial intelligence can generate answers in seconds. Which means the most valuable human capacities are changing.
The future belongs to people who can notice what others overlook, build meaningful relationships, ask better questions, imagine new possibilities, collaborate across differences, and create something that didn't exist before.
Those aren't skills students develop at eighteen. They grow through practice — every day, in classrooms.
No technology can replace the deeply human work of noticing, connecting, and building. Ripple exists to help students practice those capacities now.
Maybe there's another way to go about it...Imagine your classroom six months from now.
Students walk in already talking about their projects.
Someone interviewed a local business owner.
Another group wants to show you something they built over the weekend.
A student discovered a community partner you never would have found yourself.
Another student is pouring over city council documents because they have a big meeting today.
Instead of asking,
"Is this for a grade?"
they're asking,
"Can we keep working on this?"
Your classroom feels different.
Not because you're working harder.
Because students have become more invested.
Build the classroom you always imagined was possible.
School work becomes real work.
Students become builders.
Communities become stronger.
And teaching begins to feel like the reason you chose it in the first place.
Build the ripple, not the rubric.
DESIGNED TO GIVE YOU MORE SPACE TO FACILITATE TOMORROW’S LESSON PLAN IS COVERED.
so is next Monday’s, and the Monday after that, and the Monday after that, and the Monday after that…
You shouldn't have to reinvent meaningful learning every Sunday night.
Ripple gives you a weekly rhythm that grows with your students all year long.
RIPPLE HELPS MEANINGFUL WORK EMERGE
Not every great project begins with a brilliant idea.
Sometimes it begins with a conversation.
A place.
A longing.
A problem.
A neighbor.
A question.
Ripple gives teachers a toolkit that helps students notice opportunities, connect with others, and build projects that grow naturally from the communities around them.
Instead of assigning projects,
students begin discovering them.
Use Ripple once a week, once a unit, once a quarter, once a semester. The more you use it, the more students will understand how to build emergent, place-based projects IRL.
GIVE STUDENTS THE SPACE
TO BUILD UP THEIR PLACE
All your students need is the support to bring their projects to life is the class time, the support, and the coaching to make it happen. Perhaps they’ll even be driven by their own excitement as incentive, not letter grades as incentive, to be creative.
to do really good, real work.
Also though, remember, projects might end (or never begin for reasons outside of students’ hands).
The garden gets built.
The proposal gets rejected.
The documentary gets screened.
The semester ends.
But the student who made it is different.
They know how to notice.
They know how to find people.
They know how to ask.
They know how to make.
They’ll have the confidence and agency to do it again and again and again. They’re now REAL agents in REAL community work, and they realize that it’s more exciting than it is hard.
That's the ripple.
WHY TEACHERS CHOOSE RIPPLEIt helps you spend more time on the parts of teaching that made you become a teacher in the first place.
✓ Students who genuinely want to participate.
✓ A weekly rhythm you don't have to reinvent.
✓ More coaching. Less managing.
✓ Stronger relationships.
✓ Community partnerships that make learning feel real.
✓ Projects students still talk about after the semester ends.
So many school projects out there ask students to solve problems. Ripple begins by helping students notice what's already alive and roll with that momentum!Most assignments end with a grade. Ripple Projects leave something behind. Most curriculum asks students to consume information. Ripple invites them to build relationships.