Engineering Cacti

One of the things we have been reading and learning about in science is interdependence - how plants and animals in an environment depend on each other.  First we talked about their suggestion of a forest environment and read a book called One Small Place in a Tree by Barbara Brenner that tells how a hole could form in a tree and the different forest animals that might make their homes there.  Then for a more unfamiliar environment, we have looked more closely at a desert.  I read the class two books:  Cactus Hotel by Brenda Z. Guiberson and Desert Giant by Barbara Bash, both of which describe animals that depend on the saguaro cactus for homes or food.  We used Google Maps to travel to Saguaro National Park and look around in street view at the cacti.  We also watched a short video clip showing many of the animals we had read about.  With all these resources we talked about what examples we found of animals making homes in the cactus or eating parts of it.

Now we are working on an engineering project to make a model showing some of the examples of interdependence we have learned about.  The model must have a 3D cactus that is between 3 and 6 popsicle sticks tall.  It must be able to stand on its own.  Then students must add three 3 D animals to their cactus and write an information card telling why each one needs the saguaro cactus.

Here are some groups hard at work on their plans:

Now we are hard at work to complete the cacti and animals:

I can't wait to see how these projects turn out!