Students will investigate living and nonliving things, object attributes, motion, shapes, and maps to collaboratively design, test, revise, and explain a model city where plants and people can thrive.

Students begin with a “mystery city” exploration, examining safe plants, rocks, toy cars, blocks, and shapes, then sorting and describing what they notice. After viewing an above-the-city map and images of real communities, they receive a challenge: design a smaller model city where plants and people can thrive using living and nonliving features. Students investigate how shapes and materials can create strong, useful, and interesting structures; how ramps, paths, and pushes help objects move as intended; and how sorting by attributes helps them choose materials. They return throughout the project to the question, “How can we use shapes and what we learn about living things, nonliving things, and motion to create our city?”

Students will observe, explain, and model how living and nonliving things can be sorted by attributes, then use their findings to select materials for a city where plants and people can thrive. They will identify, compare, combine, and build with 2D shapes and 3D figures; describe locations with positional words; and create a smaller, overhead map that distinguishes land and water. Through ramp and pathway tests, students will observe how objects roll, slide, speed up, slow down, or stop, then use the results to design strong, useful city structures. In teams, students will ask, imagine, plan, create, test, and improve their model city, using drawings, labels, photos, simple data displays, and peer suggestions to explain and strengthen their choices.

Partner with a local botanical garden educator for one 30-minute classroom or virtual visit and a follow-up review of students’ city plans. The educator can bring safe plant specimens and photographs to help students distinguish living plants from nonliving objects, identify plant needs, and recommend features that help plants and people thrive. Students can use the classroom, school garden, or playground to map an overhead view, locate land and water, sort building materials by attributes, and plan shape-based structures, paths, and ramps. The educator can revisit through photos or video to give child-friendly feedback on whether the final model city is strong, useful, interesting, and supportive of living things.

Student teams will create a shared Plant City model and an overhead, smaller-scale map showing living and nonliving features in labeled locations. They will sort and compare materials by attributes, then combine basic shapes to build strong, useful structures, ramps, and paths. Teams will plant and document a real plant, test how objects roll, slide, speed up, slow down, or stop, and improve the city using observations and peer suggestions. Drawings, labels, photos, and brief oral explanations will show how students used scientific investigation, problem solving, and mathematical models to help plants and people thrive.

Use observation notes, photos, student journals, and brief conferences during planting, sorting, shape-building, and ramp tests to document explanations, model use, problem solving, and comparisons of attributes and motion. Assess the final city with a picture-supported rubric: accurately grouped living and nonliving features with observable evidence; combined and described shapes; labeled land, water, and relative locations on a smaller, top-view map; and a tested ramp or path that produces intended motion. During the showcase, each student will demonstrate one city feature and answer an essential question using the model as evidence. Students will use smiley-face self-assessments and peer suggestions to identify a success, revise one detail, and explain how the change made the city stronger, useful, or supportive of plants and people.