Playground Engineers: A Fourth Grade PBL
CAMP HUMPHREYS, SOUTH KOREA – A health unit on building healthy bodies sparked a project based learning project at Humphreys West Elementary School, as Mr. Carpenter’s fourth grade students wondered what an ideal healthy playground might look like at the currently-under-construction Humphreys East Elementary School.
The students generated the driving question: “How can we design an innovative, inclusive, and safe playground that promotes physical and emotional well-being while also applying our mathematical and analytical skills to solve real-world problems related to playground construction and use?”
Using PBL, students were able to look at the components of playground design including physical space, budget, equipment, safety concerns, inclusion, and how to optimize physical and emotional well-being. They brought all the pieces together to present their ideas on new layouts and safety guidelines to parents, the Army Corps of Engineers, and Dr. Helen Bailey, PAC West Community Superintendent.
“I was so impressed with how students handled themselves, spoke with confidence, and stepped up to own their hard work,” Mr. Carpenter said. “Through all this stress, time, and maybe a few grey hairs, I was reminded why doing projects like this is so important: students are engaging with real problems. Real problems don’t have easy solutions. Real problems get complicated! And real problems involve a team-effort to find a solution.”
To begin, the class broke the large project into four main stages of development. In each stage, Mr. Carpenter said they guided their process by doing brain dumps, generating a list of “figure-outs,” possible products in that stage, and finally making small work groups, called committees, that would create and present specific products. While the work was tough and some committees had moments of confusion, dissolution, or even failure, the students, with their remarkable resilience and adaptability, were able to course correct and find a better direction. At the end of each stage, the committees had a chance to show off their products to the class and receive feedback using a student-generated rubric to keep focus on learning and quality standards.
“I think we should recommend that more teachers do more projects like this because they encourage hands-on learning, and students to solve real-world problems,” said one fourth grade student. “[They] give kids a sense of reality.”
Students generated a list of questions in both Korean and English and interviewed the construction company, a scary first for 9-year-olds! They developed a “playground safety” survey and rated the Humphreys West playground, got school safety data from our nurse, learned how to plot data in a spreadsheet and find measures of center, sifted through DoDEA regulations for key rules for building healthy playgrounds, learned to navigate an engineer-grade blueprint, and integrated all this knowledge to develop new, safer layouts for the playground.
On May 28th, the class hosted a stakeholder meeting. With parents, the Army Corps of Engineers, and Community Superintendent of DoDEA Pacific West, Dr. Helen Bailey in attendance, students, with their newfound courage and confidence, made their final case for why their new layouts and safety guidelines should be implemented.
“I am beyond impressed with the PBL these students developed and shared,” said HWES principal Mr. Edgar Romero. “Not only did they research, develop, and create wonderful products, but they shared it with the community. This is what learning should be at its core: how do we each contribute to society and make our world better?” Learning these critical thinking skills goes beyond just playground thoughts – it develops students who think through problems and find solutions and persevere though the productive struggle.”
Students grew through their development of a playground plan for the new Humphreys East Elementary School. While they learned a lot about the construction and process of creating a safe, fun, healthy playground, they also learned about their own resilience, problem solving skills, and curiosity.
