Students will launch the Plant City challenge by exploring real objects, gathering initial evidence about living and nonliving things, shapes, and motion, and identifying what a city needs to help plants and people thrive.

Students will investigate living and nonliving things, shapes, physical attributes, materials, plants, and maps before comparing multiple Plant City concepts and selecting an evidence-based team plan.

Students will build a low-fidelity Plant City prototype, investigate pushes, pulls, ramps, and friction, and use repeated-trial evidence to select effective paths and surfaces. They will document shape combinations, living and nonliving features, motion results, and evidence-based recommendations in their engineering journals.

Students will use test evidence, picture-supported engineering journals, task trackers, peer feedback, and repeated trials to improve and rehearse explanations of their tested Plant City models and overhead maps.

Students will prepare, present, and evaluate their tested Plant City models and overhead maps, using observations, test results, and design revisions as evidence for an authentic audience.