Hands-on Activity A House for Me:
Materials and Design for Different Climates

Learning Objectives

• The impact climates have on the building of structures
• Details about several types of climates
• Basic structural design
• Basic experimental skills

Educational Standards

Each TeachEngineering lesson or activity is correlated to one or more K-12 science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) educational standards.

All 100,000+ K-12 STEM standards covered in TeachEngineering are collected, maintained and packaged by the Achievement Standards Network (ASN), a project of D2L (www.achievementstandards.org).

In the ASN, standards are hierarchically structured: first by source; e.g., by state; within source by type; e.g., science or mathematics; within type by subtype, then by grade, etc.

NGSS: Next Generation Science Standards - Science

Common Core State Standards - Math

International Technology and Engineering Educators Association - Technology

State Standards

Materials List

• hay or long grass
• clay
• Popsicle sticks
• sugar cubes
• LEGOs
• small stones
• flour (snow)
• fan (wind)
• water (rain)
• hairdryer (heat)

Worksheets and Attachments

Introduction/Motivation

If you could live anywhere in the world and in the climate of your choice, what kind of a house would you construct? What would you need to build your house so that it could withstand the climate? In the next two classes you are going to use the given materials to create a house of your choice. You will need to choose materials that are suitable for the climate you have chosen to live in. Your house must still be standing after we have huffed, puffed, and tried to blow your house down!!

Procedure

Background

People in different parts of the world have different materials that they can use to build their homes and other structures. When building a home, they think about how to best use these materials to build a house that works well for where and how they live. In the southwestern part of the US, where people have a lot of clay and little wood, they build houses from adobe, a mixture of clay, straw and water.

Adobe houses have very thick walls that keep them cool in the hot dry desert weather. Adobe houses would not be good in places where it rains a lot because too much water makes adobe crumble. The weather in certain tropical islands in the Pacific ocean is hot, but wet. People there make their homes from materials that are easy to find, such as palm leaves, woven grasses and bamboo. Sometimes they build the houses on stilts to keep them off the wet ground and let the breezes move under the house, helping to keep it cool.

In ages past, the Eskimos in Alaska and Canada built their houses out of sod or snow. These dome-shaped houses are called igloos. The dome shape of the igloo makes it very strong and able to withstand powerful winter storms. Some Native Americans built dome-shaped houses made of poles, leaves and tree bark. These houses were called wigwams. Native American tribes that moved a lot often built cone-shaped tepees using buffalo skins or bark. Tepees could be easily built and taken apart quickly. Some Native Americans lived in more permanent structures called lodges made from logs and sod.

When early American settlers came to New England, they found the ground covered with large stones. They used these stones to build houses and walls that you still see in New England today. The northwest part of the US and Canada has plenty of forests, so most houses in these areas are made of wood. In areas of China with few forests, it is rare to have a wooden house. Instead, the Chinese people use tile, concrete and stone to build beautiful pagodas and other structures.

In parts of Africa, where tall grasses grow, people weave the stems of dried grass together to make thatch huts. In Tibet, some people even make their houses out of wool! They shear the wool from ox-like animals called yaks. The wool walls keep the houses warm through the cold winter months. Most houses in the US today are built of wood, brick, stone, concrete, aluminum or even glass!

Recommended Resources:

Biomes are distinct ecological communities of plants and animals living together in particular climates. Learn more about biomes at: http://kids.nceas.ucsb.edu/biomes/index.html

See photos of snow-block igloo construction at: https://www.wikihow.com/Build-an-Igloo

See many photographs of teepees at: http://www.photovault.com/Link/Cities/Southwest/Teepee.html

Hoberman, Mary Ann. A House Is a House for Me. The Viking Press: New York, NY, 1978.

Before the Activity

• Gather materials.
• Read Mary Ann Hoberman's book, A House Is a House for Me.

With the Students

Present the Engineering Design Challenge:

1. Have the class think about why people need houses, what materials are needed to build a house, and what the various parts of a house include.
2. Pair students and have each team choose an environment where the students want their house built. Have students figure out what type of climate their house must be able to handle in that environment. Instruct them to design and sketch a house to withstand that climate.
3. Have each group to present their concept to the rest of the class. Have the class comment and make suggestions on each other's ideas.

Build:

4. Have the groups build their designs with the available materials. Have students construct their houses on an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper with a grid printed on it.
5. Estimate the area of the house by counting the squares.

Test:

6. Test the houses against the elements that would be appropriate for the climate they built their houses to withstand.
7. Compare each of the groups' houses and discuss what materials are needed in different climates.

Vocabulary/Definitions

adobe: A brick or building material made of a sun-dried mixture of earth and straw.

arctic: The northernmost area of the Earth centered on the North Pole, characterized by long, cold winters and short, cool summers.

climate: A region with specified weather conditions; the average weather conditions of a particular place or region over a period of years.

climograph: A graph that demonstrates the precipitation and temperature for an area.

hut: A small and often temporary dwelling or shelter.

igloo: An Eskimo house usually made of wood, sod or stone when permanent, or of blocks of snow or ice in the form of a dome when built for temporary use.

lodge: A house set apart for residence in a special season.

pagoda: A Far Eastern tower of several stories erected as a temple or memorial.

Taiga: A subarctic, evergreen coniferous forest of northern Eurasia located just south of the tundra and dominated by firs and spruces.

tepee: A cone-shaped tent usually of skins used as a home by some Native Americans.

tree house: A structure (as a playhouse) built among the branches of a tree.

wigwam: A hut of the Native Americans of the Great Lakes region and eastward that usually has an arched frame of poles covered with bark, rush mats or hides.

Assessment

Final Evaluation: Use the attached rubric to evaluate student teams' success in three areas: quality of design and construction, performance of house against climate tests, and demonstrated understanding of concepts. Show students the rubric criteria in advance to clarify the grading process.

Investigating Questions

• What different kinds of homes are you familiar with?
• Why are houses around the world made of different materials?
• Why do people and animals need shelter?
• What types of materials are used to build houses?
• What materials are best for certain climates? Why?
• What would happen if the wrong materials were used for a given climate?
• What does climate mean? What is one type of climate?
• Which house withstood the elements best? Why?

Additional Multimedia Support

Have students read and then discuss an example in west Africa where a school was built to work with the climate and local materials and labor to withstand weather conditions ranging from blazing sun to torrential showers. The designer, a native of the community, reverse engineered everything he was taught at school, using principles of heat to figure out natural cooling, and learning to design windows that would protect from the blazing sun but still offer ventilation. See "Homegrown Hero" in the Architectural Digest at: https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/diebedo-francis-kere-opera-village-burkina-faso-article.

References

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