Day 8-Frozen Fortress

Frozen Fortress

Overview of frozen Fortress

Building and learning go hand in hand when it comes to this project. Students LOVE this christmas building project and are excited to complete this challenge. This challenge allows kids to create a sturdy structure in preparation for a snowball fight. Students learn a lot of cool principals all while going about this awesome project! Also, if you would rather watch a video of exactly how I do this lesson check it out here on the left!

Define the Problem

When we are defining the problem I first like to open a discussion about what kids know about the topic. So you could ask them:

What makes a snow fort strong?
Given the materials you are using what could make your structure strong?
What are some past experiences you have had with snow structures?

I then show them a video about how igloos are made as we want to use similar principles to build a sturdy structure. After that, we make a list of things we know as a result of the video. It's always interesting to see what kids take away from this day AND start to wonder and explore as a result of their learning.

Plan A solution

On this day students begin drawing their fort as though they are blueprints. I tell the kids I want to see what they learned from the previous day through this drawing. Are they using big marshmallows and compacting them? What are we doing as a result of what we learned? This is crucial in the engineering design process. I like to have the kids draw it and make a list of things they need.

Build a model

THE BEST PART IS HERE! I love the engineering design process but, kids absolutely love this part of the process. They want to build and get their hands messy. In this project they do because of all the marshmallow on their fingers. I like to circulate as kids are building if we are in person. Otherwise, I have them make me a video on flipgrid of their final product. I am looking for some reasoning on this step and predicting so that we can build a hypothesis for testing.

Test the model

When we test the model we are looking for kids to observe things. I have the kids throw small marshmallow at each others' forts. After that, I ask them questions to help guide them on what they liked and what they could improve as a result of their testing. The kids love this and I even ask for constructive feedback from their classmates. I like to give two things we liked and one question they could improve. Plus, it's always fun to see what students come up with!

redesign and Retest

This step is where I give kids some time to redesign. What can we change to improve our design? We need the kids to think about what went well and what they could improve on as a result of the testing. This is all done in this step and the kids love it!

I hope you enjoyed this fun STEM challenge! I can't wait to see what you and your kids come up with. If you have any questions contact me at sharpthebuilder2020@gmail.com

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