Role:
Project Designer — adapted a pre-existing creative project for a first grade classroom, aligning it with science curriculum on animal features and environments.

Project Description:
In this project, students used laser-cut cardboard parts, brass fasteners, and tape to build mechanical animals with movable joints. Initial constructions replicated real species, while later ones blended different features into new, imaginative creations. Students then explained how their animals’ features helped them survive in specific environments, connecting imaginative storytelling with life science concepts.

Design Approach:
I modified a project originally designed for older students, making it developmentally appropriate for first grade and explicitly tied to animal adaptations. To support fine motor skills, I provided pre-cut parts representing animal features and abstract shapes. The use of brass fasteners introduced students to moving mechanical joints, while tape provided rigid connections. The final constructions resembled flat shadow puppets with moving parts, helping students visualize both mechanics and biology.

Project Sequence:

• Students matched real animal drawings with cardboard parts, practicing representation and feature recognition.

• As a class, they built frog legs together to learn how fasteners and tape can create different kinds of joints.

• In groups, they collaboratively built full frogs, applying mechanics and teamwork without visual guides.

• Groups sketched imaginary animals, with each member contributing a feature, then built them from cardboard parts.

• Students presented their animals, naming them, describing habitats, showing their motions, and explaining how their chosen features supported survival.

• Some groups added color with oil pastels, connecting appearance to function (e.g., camouflage for hiding, bright colors for warning).

Student Learning Outcomes:

• Understood how animal features relate to survival and environments.

• Practiced mechanical construction with movable and rigid joints.

• Developed collaboration and group storytelling skills.

• Used imagination alongside scientific reasoning to invent and explain new species.