Becoming Engineers for the Day

Yesterday we started to get prepared for the video conference that we are doing with the Minnesota Zoo today.  We are getting pretty excited.  The activity we did yesterday was a challenge where we had to create a part of a zoo enclosure for a stuffed animal in the classroom.  This poor animal lived in an enclosure with alligators so we had to create a safe place  for that animal to live.  The rules were that the thing they built had to be 12 inches high and the stuffed animal had to be able to sit or lay on top to be safe. The supplies that the kids got were about 50 index cards and 12 inches of tape.  It was a very tough challenge.  We had a good time with it and learned a lot about engineering.