Earthquake Candy Cookie Houses

What's the holidays without candy?!  In order to celebrate the holidays and, most importantly, to culminate our study of plate tectonics and earthquakes, the 5-6 students created candy cookie houses to withstand a devastating "table" earthquake in the TCCS Cafeteria.  This STEM Challenge allowed the students to let their inner engineer shine through.  They learned about how houses and bridges are built to withstand powerful earthquakes in a city such as San Francisco, which is prone to earthquakes due to being located near 2 major faults.  With a group, the students created sketches to plan out their ideas and then built their houses using a variety of candies and cookies.  It was a great time and most of the houses did withstand the TCCS earthquake!!!!  Great job 5-6 students!

A special thank you goes out to all of the parents and families who donated materials to complete this project.  We couldn't have done it without you!  Happy Holidays to all!

Pictures from the event:

Our Pet Rocks

The 5-6 students culminated their study of rocks and the rock cycle by creating their very own pet rocks.  They each got to choose an animal to transform their rocks into their very own pets!  Following this project, the students designed comic strips with their pet rocks as the main characters as they traveled through the rock cycle.  Check out the pictures below, they did a fabulous job!