Authentic, Meaningful, and Relevant Projects

When it comes to coming up with projects within my classroom, I want to make sure that I am meeting standards of course, but I also want to ensure that my students are fully engaged and see the importance and value in what we are doing. Specifically with my Architecture project, my students are coming up with a Dream House design that not only is realistic, but can be something that they take with them to an architect and/or builder in the future and work off of it to create an actual house. I have my students using an online Architectural drawing program called FloorPlanner to design a floor plan in 2D and see a 3D rendering as well. I also have my students go to Zillow.com to research the different houses on the market today and the values and prices that they might see. We also discuss why prices vary and fluctuate from one location to the next.

I also allow my students a voice and a choice in their designs and path that they take in 7th grade when creating their catapult projects where we apply real real-world physics concepts and terms to their project. We also follow the Engineering Design Process and draw many parallels between how designers, engineers and other professionals utilize this process to come up with a solution to solve a real world problem.