Fourth Grade Students Complete Building a Better House Challenge

During the week of September 14th, fourth grade students in Mr. Bihari’s STEM class used their collaboration, creativity, and problem-solving skills to complete the Building a Better House Challenge! The goal was to construct a house that could withstand strong winds.

Each group constructed a small model house that featured a ground level door, at least two windows, four walls and a roof. While constructing their houses, groups could use no more than 10 sheets of copier paper, 15 wooden craft sticks, 1 meter of masking tape and 10 paper clips.

Once completed, each group used masking tape to affix their model home to a cardboard base on a table. Mr. Bihari then used a leaf blower to simulate the strong winds of a tornado or hurricane and test the strength of each home! Each house that stayed intact was then placed on display in the classroom.

Afterwards, students completed reflection questions to identify which design elements were successful and which ones they would change.

Congratulations to our fourth-grade students for their excellent display of critical thinking skills and teamwork!