At Auburn Early Education Center students, nearly 500 five-year olds, are doing thematically-based projects and getting into it! If five year olds can excel with PBL why doubt this instructional method with older students?
Read the Edutopia article, "Beginning the Journey: Five-Year-Olds Drive Their Own PBL Projects" by Ken Ellis and view a video of kids moving through various projects at the Center to see how engaged they can become! 
As Ellis reports: "At this award-winning kindergarten learning center,
shared with a special-education preschool, the students decide what
projects they want to tackle, and teachers guide them to resources, on
the Internet and in books, that help them create something from what
they learn. Whether they're building an airplane or a cruise ship, or
conducting a funeral for the class praying mantis, AEEC students are
learning more than basic facts and skills. They are acquiring a taste
for the process of lifelong learning.
"These kids have a very authentic, real purpose for learning," says AEEC principal Lilli Land. "When you want to find something out, what do you do? You go to the computer, you get on the Internet, you get a book. You don't go to an adult and just have them feed you all the information. You have to learn to be a problem solver; you have to learn to be resourceful. So we teach them to be lifelong learners, and you have to keep them excited about the process of learning."
I would suspect that if my son had gone to THIS school when he was five, he wouldn't have told his dad after one day of kindergarten, "I'm b o r e d !"
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