May 2014

NSPE TODAY
Kansas Chapter’s Grant Supports Lessons in Structural Engineering

STUDENTS DONNED HARDHATS TO LEARN ABOUT BUILDING RESILIENT HOUSES.

Thanks to a grant from a Kansas Society of Professional Engineers chapter, a first-grade class is learning how structures can stand up to winds ranging from the huffing and puffing of the Big Bad Wolf to tornados.

Nancy Smith, a teacher at Bentwood Elementary in Overland Park, Kansas, applied for the grant from KSPE’s Eastern chapter and received $500, which has funded a number of science and engineering activities for her students.

The main activity was held during National Engineers Week and featured a house-building project inspired by Steven Guarnaccia’s retelling of Three Little Pigs, which focuses on the architecture of the houses with nods to Frank Gehry, Philip Johnson, and Frank Lloyd Wright. After listening to the story, the kids brainstormed to determine what features would make a resilient house. They drew designs of their houses, then collected recycled materials from home and built models from their drawings.

Parents were enlisted to test the strength of the 17 houses. First they used their own lung power, followed by increasingly stronger tools: a hair dryer, an electric fan, a leaf blower, and finally an industrial dryer. The students watched on with safety goggles and clipboards, taking notes about how their houses held up to each test.

One student was quoted in The Kansas City Star saying, “Engineering means that you build stuff and repair stuff.” After watching her house collapse under the strain of powerful winds, she said, “I learned that even if it falls down, you can still repair it and it kind of gets to be the same.” In the end, most of the houses survived the tests.

Todd Black, P.E., parent of a student in the class and board member of the Eastern chapter, was on hand to teach the kids about foundations, even helping set their houses in concrete for the experiment. Black encouraged Smith to apply for the grant, believing her to be an exceptionally passionate teacher who gets her students truly involved with their education.

PARENT MIKE EAVES TESTS THE HOUSES THAT STUDENTS BUILT WITH A LEAF BLOWER.

The experiment brought into focus the applications of engineering on real life. Living in Kansas carries the threat of tornados, and the kids now understand the importance of engineering in creating safe structures. There has even been construction at their school to reinforce entrance points in the event of a tornado. The principal showed the students blueprints for the project, giving them understanding of how the profession affects them and how engineering plans are important.

Other activities that were funded by the grant included building bird houses, a joint project between the first-grade class and the building technology program at nearby Kansas City Kansas Community College, as well as designing more buildings and marshmallow launchers. Nancy Smith has a career day planned for later in May.