Geometrocity!
                                         By: Lindsey Droppers and Liz Mireles

Project at a Glance :

Students will create a geometric “city” based on the needs of their city. In partnership with their city’s planning commissioner, students will design a blueprint and 3D model as a solution to the city planner’s needs. (4th/5th grade 2-3 week project)
       
Driving Question:

​How can we, as architects, design a new sector of the city of Zeeland?            

Standards:

• Math STDS:  3.G.A.1, 3.G.A.2, 4.G.A.1, 4,G.A.2, 4.G.A.3, 5.G.B.3,  5.G.B.4, &  6.G.B.4

Team / Culture Building:

• Start groups by meeting with the teacher so the teacher is able to model correct group behavior.
• Skill for Success focus: Communication 
• Model eye contact, listening, wait time, engaging quieter students (students should ask each other: what do you think?)

Entry Event:

• Build a town on Minecraft in small groups based on students with prior experience. 

• Possibly build ‘rough draft’ of a city out of Legos.​

Stakeholders:

• Mayor
• Community members,
• Young child
• Business owners
• Construction workers
• Experts - architect, contractor, engineer

Empathy Building:

• Create an Empathy Map for a young child, business owner, and community member.
• Each group will create an empathy map for these three stakeholders and share out what they learned in the process.

Inquiry / Need to Knows:

• Explore the City of Zeeland Proposed Projects link.
• Questions - brainstorm Need to Knows categorizing post-it notes. 
• Teacher will add questions to the Need to Knows such as:   What types of buildings are found in every city?  What they want their city to be made up of? What shapes do they notice?
• Conduct research exploring - the DeVos Place, Grand Rapids, O-14 Tower in Dubai, Steelcase Pyramid, Grand Rapids, Opera House, Copenhagen, The Taj Mahal, India, The Oriental Pearl TV Tower, Dubai, The Sydney Opera House, Shanghai World Financial Center, London Bridge, etc.
• Utilize Google maps to notice features of different towns. Screengrab the city of Zeeland and divide it into sections based on the number of student groups. Students will investigate certain sections of the city in greater detail.​

Incubation:

•  Students will ask a lot of questions, use a graphic organizer to list ideas, support all students’ ideas to create a safe environment for sharing.

• Use Padlet build an Idea Quota for answering the DQ. Students can organize ideas into groups using the Saturate and Group strategy.
• Use Padlet to build an Idea Quota for the Anti-Problem. Students can organize ideas into groups. From there, students will return to original Padlet to determine “top ideas”.​​

• Use Dot Voting on shapes to determine what the shape of students’ buildings will be.

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Solution Building:

• Each student drafts a blueprint for their groups building. 
• Where Is The Love? Students circle what they love most about their blueprint (limited to 1 part)
• Students share their blueprints with their group members, and draft a new blueprint that incorporates each person’s idea they loved into the groups’ blueprint

Critique and Revision: 

• Shape identification check-in form, first done in student groups collaboratively at this stage, and will be repeated later as final individual assessment.
• Glow/Grow- Each team collaboratively gives feedback during the blueprint stage and during the build up stage.
• Teacher physically highlights content added they agree with to provide student groups with teacher feedback.​​

Authentic Audience:

• Mayor
• Community members,
• Young child
• Business owners
• Construction workers
• Experts - architect, contractor, engineer

Final Presentation:

• Groups will Import pictures of different stages of project into a Google slide presentation. 
• They will create QR codes for slideshows to be placed in various locations around Zeeland for stakeholders to view students’ projects.
• Slideshows would end with a survey for stakeholders to provide feedback.
• Rubric will be utilized for final product and slideshow to include and accurately identify 4 different geometric shapes, additionally, students will retake the formative assessment on geometry terms. Lastly, students will take a self-assessment to reflect on their participation and knowledge gained throughout the project. The surveys received from QR code displays will provide additional feedback.​

Click here for teacher's full plan.

​Reflection and Feedback:

• QR Code generator
• Google Form
• Where is the Love activity
• Surveys from Stakeholders  & Checklist from teacher​

Click here for the  teacher's Journey through PBL on Padlet.

Meet the Educator:
Liz Mireles teaches 5th and 6th Grade at ZQuest Elementary, Zeeland Public Schools.  
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     "I love helping students feel empowered to take ownership of their learning and express themselves creatively all while learning their grade content." ~ L. Mirles

     "I love giving students the opportunity to connect their learning with a real world problem and providing them with the tools they need to solve the problem." ~ L. Droppers