Xanthe and Will's 1-2 class noticed a problem: they had a hard time picking up and finding a place to store their belongings. They set to work thinking about how to find a solution together!
Students decided to design a modular storage system for boots, gloves, and other items in the classroom.
"We drew our designs. We tried to imagine what it would be like to use them in real life." - Second-grade student
What if our gear is wet?
What gear should go in the bins?
"Then we thought about what materials we would need. We didn't want to buy plastic bins." - First-grade student
Do we use plastic or newspaper to line the bins?
Students decided to line each bin with plastic and newspaper.
Do we need handles on our bins?
Will everything fit?
How do we pull the bins out from under the bench?
Students asked questions and came up with answers together.
"We found that each bin could be 13.5 inches wide. But we wanted to leave space inbetween the boxes so that we could pull them out so we made each bin 13 inches wide." - Second-grade student
Each student painted and decorated their box.
They wrote letters to Stan and the rest of his Deep Dive Cleaning Crew: Humberto and Junior. Each student thanked them for cleaning the classroom every day.
Students applied what they had learned in their recent engineering unit to solve a real-world problem in the classroom.