Turn your construction project into a learning opportunity for students.

Elementary School Activities

All students are very interested in the construction work progressing or about to begin. In every class we've worked in, there has been incredible interest in what we were doing, what the project was going to include, when it will be done, and how we do our jobs. 

Several activity suggestions include: 

· Include students in the traditional ground breaking and ribbon cutting ceremonies. Instead of the normal school administrators/faculty/school board members, have the students turn over the first shovel or cut the ribbon. This shows the districts commitment to the students and is also a great means to have the press recognize the start or finish of construction. Newspapers in particular will print a photo of a student rather than a group of adults holding shovels!

· Have students and faculty sign the final "topping out" beam. Normally, a beam is signed by all of the tradesmen working on a building just before the last steel member is hoisted into place. By having the students sign the beam, they can feel that they have left their mark on the building.

· To acquaint students with what different jobs there are in construction, have a selected tradesmen eat lunch with the students, explain what they did, what tools they used in their trade, and answer any questions from the students.  Students will especially enjoy trying out some of the tools the tradesmen used in their jobs.

· In conjunction with the classroom teachers, we can assist in developing different lessons for different grades and different subjects. In the two schools where we have conducted these classes, there were 4-section schools. The first part of every session involved reviewing the construction in progress and what the building was going to look like and answering questions from the students. Minor facts about the project, particularly numeric ones, were the most popular. Generally, we were always asked, "How many bricks are there?” How many bathrooms/toilets are there in the building?, Is there an elevator?, How long/wide/high is the building?. Answers to these are very easily available from suppliers or from the work we do, so having this information was not a problem.

· Some of the topics that may be covered include:

Construction tools and equipment: We can bring in some of the hand tools as a show and tell for Grades 1-2. While some of the tools are ones they probably see at home such as hammers, screwdrivers, etc., they are used to "break the ice" and make the kids feel at ease. We can also bring in more unusual tools, such as tubing cutters and conduit benders, with the materials they are used with to demonstrate how the tools functioned. The students may take turns using tubing cutters. Tools can also led to discussions about the different trades and the training required to do the jobs, etc.

Geography. We can assemble a list of equipment/material being used in the construction of the building. We then trace the item back to its manufacturing location and showed the students on a large map of the U.S. where all of the different items came from. We typically have samples of the different products so the students can understand what we are talking about. Discussions of where the materials came from led to discussions about how material is shipped or delivered to the project, what it takes to order/deliver/unload the product, and why different shipping methods are used.

As a follow-up to the geography lesson, we can also discuss how different materials are made. For instance, we could review what bricks are made of (clay) and what steps are involved in making bricks. Materials discussed would include steel, concrete/mortar, ceramic tile, lumber and wood products, etc.

Careers and job specialization. We can explain what the different labor positions are, what makes the jobs different, what training is required to perform the job, and how men/women became plumbers/electricians/carpenters, etc. The students seem to always be curious about working conditions, how much employees are paid, what they do during winter/bad weather, and what tools each trade employs.

Math related topics. Probably the most successful topics we have discussed with students were math related. Working with 4th and 5th grades, we have put together a series of questions using Area and Perimeter to show how we used math in construction and how it was valuable in determining different things. Using copies of the actual construction drawings and actual samples of products from the building, students were asked to determine the area or perimeter of different rooms and apply that information to estimate:

1. The number of floor tiles needed to cover a room.
2. How much base was required to go around the perimeter of a room.
3. How many bricks were required to build a wall.
4. How much those bricks would cost.

We also gave each student a small tape measure that they used to make their measurements and we permitted the students to keep the tapes. See lesson/assignment example below. Once the buildings were completed and occupied, we could then take the students out into different rooms of the building to take actual measurements of the room to familiarize them with how measurements are taken and used in real-life examples. On a return visit to the classroom, we would then take the area/perimeter calculations one step further and discuss volume. Again, using actual components of the construction project (in our case a water storage tank holding 3,000 gallons of water), we determined the volume of the tank, the weight of the tank (full and empty), and what structural engineers do with this information to design the supports for the tank.

Elementary 4th and 5th Grades
Using Area and Perimeter in Construction

1. What is the area of the Outdoor Living Science area (18.25m wide by 19.2m long)?

2. How many floor tiles will be used to cover the floor in the Gymnasium (18.25m wide by 29.3m long)? How much floor base will be needed to go around the perimeter of the gym?

3. Measure a brick. How many bricks will it take to build one wall of the outdoor living science center? The wall is 18.25m long and 7m high. If each brick costs $0.75 each, how much will it cost to build the wall?

4. Imagine that each student needs 1 square meter of space to eat lunch. How many children can eat lunch in the multi-purpose room/cafeteria (14. 1 m by 18.25m) at one time?

Who is Gilbane? Exercise

The Who is Gilbane? hand-out is appropriate for students, grades K-6. It is a brief summary that can be sent to teachers before the presentation in order for them to give the students a brief orientation.

Who is Gilbane?

Gilbane builds all kinds of buildings:

Schools
Airports
Hospitals
Office Buildings
Convention Centers
Sports Arenas
Manufacturing plants, especially for prescription drugs and cars

We have an office in Needham, MA. In fact, we have a total of 22 offices across the country! Gilbane is working on approximately 320 projects all over the United States.

Did you know that Gilbane is the largest builder of public schools in the country?

Would you like to become a builder?

You could become an engineer and plan how buildings go together.

Or you could become an estimator and figure out how much a building will cost.

Or you could become an accountant and manage the money it takes to build a building.

Or you could be one of the people actually pouring concrete or erecting steel.

And, by the way, we use computers and the internet for all jobs in construction!

There are lots of things you can become if you’re interested in building.

How do you become a builder?

You need to finish school, and you need to learn math, science, reading and writing.

Why do you need math, science, reading and writing?

You need math to work with plans, to figure out square feet and cubic feet and to know how much materials you need to order. How much concrete do you need for the foundation? How much roof area do you have? How big is a building that is drawn to 1/8" scale?

You need science to know what materials are in the building supplies. For instance, do you know that concrete is made of sand, rock and water? If you don’t have the right amount for each part, your concrete won’t set!

You need reading and writing to prepare reports for people who pay you to build the building, to read the instructions and symbols on blueprints, and to run a meeting and manage people.

Gilbane has over 1,700 people working for them. Some day you could be one of them!

Naked Egg Drop
Elementary or Middle School Activity

The object of the NAKED EGG DROP is to design and construct a structure to protect an egg from breaking when dropped from a variable height. An egg without any visible cracks or damage is considered a success.

Each class divides into teams. Each team is given a raw egg. Using the materials designated, they will design and construct a structure to protect the egg from breaking when dropped from a height specified by the team. The structure is dropped free fall onto a cement slab or similar non-compliant surface.  

The specifics:  

Medium raw chicken eggs are provided by the teacher.

The team is allowed 30 minutes to construct a crate using:

· One standard (21.6x28cm / 81/2x11in.) sheet of copy/typing paper 
· 15 drinking straws of any size 
· 15 popsicle sticks, wooden splints, and/or tongue depressors 
· 100 cm of string 
· 100 cm of masking tape (up to 2.5cm wide) 
· 5 rubber bands - all the same size 
· one raw chicken egg. 
· Contestants may use a pair of scissors to construct the crate (but scissors may not be a part of the crate) - and no other tools.

The recommended drop height starting points are:

· 1-4 meters for grades five and up (or ages 11 and up) 
· .5 to 1 meter for grades 4 and lower (or ages 10 and down) 

Allow teams two drops, allowing fifteen minutes for repair of structure between drops. The best of these two drops is counted.