Who's Afraid of The Big Bad Wolf?

Our class has been collaborating with Carol McLaughlin's class from Alabama in a Project Based Learning (PBL) challenge.  Ms. McLaughlin and I met on a Twitter Chat (#2ndchat) several months ago.  The topic of the chat was engaging science lessons and we decided to collaborate to complete a PBL Ms. McLaughlin has already started to plan.  After a couple Saturday afternoon Skype sessions and numerous tweets, we had laid out the framework for our PBL.  During this project, our classes kept in contact with each other through Twitter and Skype.  

Our Driving Question was: 

How can we, as second grade real estate developers, design, build, and market the cheapest home that will protect the three little pigs from the big bad wolf?

Our entry event included reading stories about the three little pigs and watching a video of students designing a home.  

Student groups then listed out what they knew and needed to know and created our PBL board.  

Next, students were given a list of materials they could use to build their homes along with a price list for each item.  

Then students designed tests with the individual items to see how they would stand up to wind created as the wolf huffed and puffed. 

After testing, groups met to discuss what they had learned about the individual materials.  They realized that they would not be able to build their houses with just one of the items on the list, they would need to combine materials.  

Students had individual thinking time to brainstorm how they would like to build their homes and then student groups met.  After much discussion and compromise a single house design for the group was decided upon.  

Then the shopping began.  Students had to calculate and keep track of construction costs.  

After their initial construction, groups could test their houses to see how it would stand up to the huffing and puffing of our big bad wolf and make any modifications they wanted.  

Finally, we were ready for the final test to see how their house would stand up to the wind.  You can see our results here.  

Next we had to learn more about how to market our homes to the three little pigs.  We invited Kathryn Schuetts, a local real estate agent in to teach us how she helps potential buyers find homes.  

Mrs. Schuetts met with each team and gave them feedback and asked guiding questions to help them think through how to publicize their home.  

Here are our presentations for the pigs

To prepare for our presentations each group presented their projects to our class.  Students used the project rubric to give them feedback.  

The three little pigs visited our classroom.  They gave each team feedback on their projects and then selected the home that best fit their needs.  

We enjoyed a Skype chat with our friends in Ms. McLaughlin's class.  Students were able to share their home designs and learning.  

Click on the links below for student reflections.

Emerson         Mia          Kathleen         Allan        Serena         Alex          

Morgan          Olivia          SrRyan          Payton          Gianna          Nadia

Caleb Dylan      Sydney     Andrew