Junior Architects of America

Introduction: You have been asked to participate in a contest run by the Junior Architects of America. The Architects of America National Convention is in late April. Students from around the country are being asked to submit models of structures for the year 3000. Fifty winning entries will be on display during the convention. Architects will vote for their favorite. The winning model will appear on a morning television show in June and will be displayed in the lobby of the JAA building.

Task: Create an entry for the Architects of America's contest. The entry must include:

• a model of a futuristic structure
• blueprints- that show multiple faces of the structure plus a birds-eye view
• a list of all plane and solid shapes in the structure
• a persuasive argument paper describing why this structure should be chosen
• a title and the names of the architects

Process:

1. Students review the plane and solid shapes (square, rectangle, triangle, circle, quadrilateral, cube, rectangular solid, triangular solid, cylinder, sphere, cone, pyramid, hemisphere)
2. They have an opportunity to examine wooden blocks and describe their shape, faces, corners, edges, points, line segments, lines and rays.
3. Other geometry terms such as congruent, symmetrical, similar, vertical, horizontal, diagonal, slides, flips and turns are revisited.
4. Using Community Construction Kit by Tom Snyder, students create structures. They talk about the faces, shapes, corners and edges of their buildings.
5. An I Spy Game is conducted within the school building.
6. An email arrives from Ima Pillar describing the Junior Architects of America building contest. The teacher reads the email with the children and asks if they are interested in participating.
7. The class fills in the entry form and sends it back to Ima. (****The form asks for address and phone number. We used the school address and phone numbers to protect privacy. The teachers keep the forms.)
8. After a few days, Ima sends the class the contest guidelines. The students discuss the guidelines and the teacher answers any questions they might have.
9. The students participate in the Shapely Landmarks activity.
10. In groups, students start brainstorming the types of structures that humans will be building in the year 3000. Students revisit topics such as renewable and non renewable resources, weather, land use and location to come to their conclusions. All buildings must contain at least four solid shapes.
11. They start drawing possible structures. Once they have agreed on the details, students plot their ideas on a blueprint that shows multiple views.
12. In art class, the groups work together to construct a model of their structures.
13. In Language Arts class, students combine efforts to write a persuasive argument stating why the JAA should choose their structure to be displayed at the convention.
14. Back in the classroom, students create a display board that includes their structure, blueprints, a list of all plane and solid shapes in the structure, a title and their persuasive argument paper.
15. Each group has a chance to present their projects to the others in the class.
16. When everything is ready, Dr. Ima Pillar visits the classroom and the students present their ideas to her.
17. A final email arrives.

 I Spy Game

1. In small groups, students locate an object within the school and take a digital picture of one section of the object.
2. They return to the classroom and print out their picture.
3. The picture is given to a second group and using the I Spy worksheet, they analyze the picture for plane and solid shapes and make a prediction.
4. With the teacher's permission, the second group tries to locate the object within the school building.
5. When they think they have found the object, they take a digital picture of the whole thing and return to the classroom.
6. They print out the picture and fill in the rest of the worksheet noting plane and solid shapes within the whole object.
7. All groups share their conclusions.

Shapely Landmarks Activity

1. Student groups are given a packet that contains pictures of landmarks to analyze. The packet includes pictures of the White House, Great Pyramids, Djenne Mosque, Parthenon, aquaducts, pueblo, wigwam, tepee, Colosseum, Great Wall of China, and other famous structures.
2. Using the Shapely Landmarks worksheet, students choose at least 5 famous landmarks, locate and tally the plane and solid shapes that are visible.
3. Groups share the information that they have found and compare their findings with other groups.  

Opportunities to share:

1. Students had multiple opportunities to share. They work together as partners in the computer lab. They form small groups to play the games and create their contest entry. Each group presents their entry to all other students in the class and then again for Dr. Ima Pillar.  

Assessment:

A rubric was used to rate the students in Cooperative Grouping. The contest guidelines were used as a checksheet for each group. A short multiple choice test was created for assessing their understanding of geometry terms.

Shapely Landmarks pictures for activity:

Aquaducts, St. Basil, Stonehenge	Castle, Great Wall	Cathedral, Big Ben
Colosseum, Aquaducts	Tepee, Pueblo, Wigwam	Parthenon
Pyramid, Djenne Mosque	Taj Mahal, Columns	White House

Click on the blueprint to see pictures from the unit.

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Unit designed by Michelle Crabill and Bruce Tiso
Page created by Brooks Widmaier
October 2003