Duffy Fourth Graders Delve into Architecture Project

This information was provided through a press release from Duffy Elementary School.

Fourth graders at have begun a two week architecture project called “We Are All Going Away to College.” They have been given a dormitory design problem to solve together. The students are creating scaled drawings and models of their dorm rooms and determining the area and perimeter.

Students are estimating costs for their room and the entire building. The students and teachers are working in their classrooms with Anna Sanko, a designer and executive director of the Architecture Resource Center. Sanko is a Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development master teaching artist.

 “It was really a wonderful experience,” said Mary Green a 4th grade teacher at Duffy. “The kids enjoyed it and learned how math applies to real world problem solving. Ms. Sanko goes at a great pace for the children to follow.”

The Duffy 5th graders are also participating in a unit of study from “Design Connections©,” involving projects and activities in the students' neighborhood and community. My Neighborhood is an interdisciplinary workshop in architecture and city planning. This is the second year for the fifth grade teachers who are developing the skills and content to take the project on themselves. They will integrate it with the Duffy math curriculum.

The Duffy teachers are very excited about giving the students an opportunity to see how math applies to everyday life. Students working with Sanko will learn how to solve design problems. They will learn skills to communicate their design solutions by making three-dimensional models, creating drawings, writing about their solutions, and talking about them. Using these tools the students will learn how to communicate their ideas with an architecture vocabulary and the critical and creative design problem-solving process.

“Everything we have used, do use, and will use is designed by someone, typically a team of people working together," Sanko said. "Designers solve problems based on what we need as human beings.”

Students use their own artwork to solve measurement, perimeter, area and cost estimating problems.