CRE Engineering Project in Ms. Collins’ Class

Today, Ms. Collins’ second grade class read the story Strega Nona (set in Calabria, a region in southern Italy which forms the “toe” of the boot). The problem in the story is that the town is about to be flooded by pasta! Their design challenge was to IMAGINE what if Big Anthony caused the pasta to overflow again. How could students save the town? Students first made a PLAN. Students pretended that they were the architects and tried to design a tower that would stand tall and not fall down using only 20 pieces of spaghetti, 10 mini marshmallows, masking tape and string!!! When each of the spaghetti towers were complete, students TESTed towers to see if they did or did not match the original designs and if they did or did not hold up to the avalanche of pasta. Afterward, students brainstormed and wrote about what they would do differently if we could make a better spaghetti tower. Over the next several class meetings, students will read other folk tales such as Jabuti the Tortoise and Monkey: a Trickster from India. For each book, the students will tackle design challenges to address difficulties faced by the characters and then brainstorm how to improve designs as a class. Throughout the unit, Ms. Collins’ class will partner up with a class in Jordan and communicate through video with them about design and the engineering process. Ms. Collins is one of 7 second grade teachers participating in this Level Up Village unit! #rrisdtech