School Wide STEM Project — Gingerbread Houses

If you’ve been around TLC for the last several years then you have heard about the emphasis on STEM education.  STEM is an acronym referring to the academic disciplines of science, technology, engineering and math.  In last November and December, the entire student body was engaged in a school wide STEM project centered around the construction of gingerbread houses.  Seventh graders tied the engineering of their structures into social studies by building scale models of famous European landmarks.  They were required to do all the mathematical calculations to scale the buildings down to manageable gingerbread size and learned lots about the science and engineering during the construction process.

Eighth graders built scale replicas of buildings found around Murphy as well as structures tying into their studies of Cherokee culture.

Third graders built the Titanic.  Notice the deadly iceberg too!

Since fourth graders are studying North Carolina, they opted to make gingerbread structures of lighthouses along our coastline.

First graders each made their own gingerbread house.

Second graders made famous structures from Asia.