Skyscraper Challenge

How can we design a way to safely evacuate people from the top of a skyscraper during an emergency?

Students began the Skyscraper Challenge by researching skyscrapers from around the world. They explored buildings with different architectural features and selected one they wanted to learn more about.

Students investigated what made their skyscraper recognizable, including its structure, shape, history, and unique design features. They then used their research to build a model that represented the defining features of the building they chose.

From there, the challenge introduced a new problem: What happens if there is an emergency at the top of the building? So students designed an external evacuation system that could move a person safely from the highest point of their skyscraper to the ground, using a marble to represent the person. This required students to work with spatial reasoning, 3D geometry, slope, direction, gravity, speed, and structural design as they figured out how to create a continuous path around a three-dimensional building.

Students planned, built, and tested their evacuation systems. When the marble became stuck, moved too quickly, fell from the path, or couldn't make a turn, students had to identify the problem and change their designs. Testing and revising continued until they could move the marble safely from the top of the building to the bottom. This was a difficult build, and I watched students work through problems that didn't have obvious solutions.

My hope is that they left knowing that not knowing how to do something yet is part of the process. They were given a problem without an obvious solution and had to keep working until they found one.

If your child joined us, ask them: What was the special feature of your skyscraper? What did you have to change to make your evacuation system work?

-Cristina