A group of Fourth Graders from Ms. Oland's class took on the challenge of creating a city. After making a long list of things they felt were important in a city, (both Essex, and their wild imaginations!) they began to research what makes up a city. The children found many statistics that informed their creation of the city. The students were given a scale and had to create their first draft from scratch. They practiced conversions of inches to feet to miles. They looked at zoning laws and where the features of their city should be. The children were asked many questions to further their inquiry. In turn they had many questions of their own. "What's a DPW?" "What is welfare? " "What's commercial zoning?" They thought like researchers. The children created their own city council and worked together to produce a functioning city that they subtly named, "New Dork City." They will continue with mathematics projects to create specific buildings from the city.
Thank you to Mrs. Marchand for facilitating this great team work!
