Unit of Inquiry- Buildings

We have recently started a new unit of inquiry around the central idea “The design of buildings and structures is dependent on the physical environment and availability of materials.” We started off with a visit from an architect and a building challenge using bush materials.

Here is what the boys have to say:

Our unit of inquiry is about buildings. Last week, my class investigated materials. I came up with canvas, aluminium, wood, wool, bricks, metal, plastic and fabric. -Ted

On Wednesday an architect came to talk to us about our unit of inquiry. Our unit of inquiry is about materials. He was talking about buildings and the materials he uses. -Freddie

Now we are doing a unit about buildings. There was a man who came to the library and he talked about architecture and how you build houses. An example is a bird’s nest, they make it in a pile of sticks with some eggs in it. He showed us the Maritime Museum and how it was built and he told us how they got big boats in there. He showed us how o build houses. Jamie and I designed a tree house on a tropical island. -Toby

We started the new unit of inquiry on Wednesday last week. The first thing we did was build a shelter for a little lego figure because we were pretending he got lost in the bush. -Max

Rish, Max and Ted’s shelter

On Wednesday we built houses with sticks. First, I came up with the idea to make as many sticks as possible touch each other on the top and tie it together with string. Then, we coated it with bark. Next, we put a bridge that connected two houses. Lastly, we decorated it with something to measure the wind direction. We really liked our house! -Alex

Alex, Nishi and Nick’s shelter

For our unit of inquiry we made dirt houses. We built a shelter which was camouflaging and it was flat too. We had lots of fun. -Stylianos

Gabe, Will, Stylianos and Toby’s shelter

On Wednesday we started a new unit of inquiry all about buildings. I love the new unit of inquiry, we even built houses for a little lego man. We had lots of fun. In my opinion this is the best unit of inquiry ever! -Marcus