Sixth Graders Interview Faculty About Identity
Wild Robot Inspires Innovative Project in Fourth Grade
This fall, the fourth graders read The Wild Robot by Peter Brown and completed a cross-curricular project involving science, innovation, and writing. The novel is about a robot named Roz who finds herself on an island and has to adapt to survive. The book allows for rich discussions about acceptance, inclusion, forgiveness, and helping others. In the book, Roz camouflages herself to get to know the island and its inhabitants (animals), so we decided to build our own versions of Roz so she could learn about our BDS community. This process began in science class where the students learned about cardboard engineering and how to connect cardboard structures without using tape or glue. They learned how to create folds, slots, flanges, and tabs to hold their creations together.
The class then worked with the innovation team on a design challenge. They needed to create their own wild robot out of cardboard with no glue and only 12 inches of tape available to them. Other constraints included height requirements and that their robot needed to be free-standing. Students set to work planning, experimenting, iterating, and trying again. Next, students created a project journal in writing class to document the tools and strategies they used and to reflect on what went well and what they would do differently next time. This is the first of three cardboard engineering challenges the students will take on this year. These journals will help students reflect on prior projects and use what they learned while also developing new skills.
The last part of the project involved fourth graders hiding their robots around the schoolhouse so the robots could observe our BDS community. Our Roz creations did not use camouflage but instead utilized the environment to hide in plain sight (a place where she may not be noticed unless you were looking for her.) We then alerted the pre-kindergarten to grade two classes to be on the lookout for our robots and provided them with data sheets they could use to keep track of the robots they found. This part of the project (much like sharing assemblies and cross-graded partnerships) connects our younger students with our older students and helps build our BDS community. Next week, the fourth graders will analyze the data and reflect on the project as a class. Fourth grade students and teachers enjoyed collaborating with the innovation team and our youngest community members.
– Lana Holman, fourth grade teacher
