Students Build Houses in History Class

Students Build Houses in History Class

Written by Ady Carter | 11/13/19

For the past 20 years, 7th grade students in Mrs. Svolos’s history class build Native American houses as part of a lesson about cultural geography and how it affects where people live. 

Mrs. Svolos said that she particularly liked this project because, “It’s equalizing to everyone. You’re not supposed to spend money but go outside and be creative.” 

The class is assigned a tribe, and, depending on the location, they are to build a house that is suited for the given area. This includes longhouses, wigwams, or even pueblos. It all depends on the resources in the region that the tribe used. 

This year, student Kelsey Hanna said, “The most stressful part was that I didn’t have that much time to make my project due to sports and activities so I made it in a time crunch, but I liked building the house because I like constructing and putting things together.” 

Along with building the houses, students are to research and write a speech about their chosen tribe and present it to the class all within one week. 

Hanna later stated in the interview that, “The speech wasn’t as hard as I thought because my friends were in the audience and I knew my information. I became part of my tribe.”