Snow Snake

 This week, in a prelude to our spring Native American Study, we had our House Table groups work on their next collaborative project: constructing a track for Snow Snake. Snow Snake is a traditional Native American winter sport played by many tribes in the Great Lakes Region. Narrow tracks are created in the snow for long, thin sticks to be thrown down in an attempt to see whose snow snake stick can slide the farthest distance. 

For this construction, kids had to have a way to clear a smooth path through the snow, free of bumps or grass patches that a snow snake might catch on. It was challenging to make the path a straight one and several tracks found themselves moving in a more diagonal path. The danger with these is that the snow snake will jump the rim as it is unable to negotiate turns. 

Here again, teamwork that included coordinated tasks was helpful in leading groups to successful results. Some kids gathered snow to make the rim or walls of the track, others dragged sticks (or themselves) down the track to pat down the snow to make it smooth, and still others used a practice snow snake to test their runs. 

Each test underwent a final "official" throw. The results were very close with each group's snow snakes traveling similar distances. We hope to have more snow so we can try our hands at this again - it would have been nice to have had a few days to play the Snow Snakes game on our tracks had the weather not melted our efforts!

Enjoy the pictures below of the building and testing of our runs!

Snow Challenge!

This week we made the most of the snow while it lasted to do a STEM challenge. 

House Table groups were tasked with building the largest snow structure they could construct. Many different approaches were attempted. Some groups went for height by packing snow in a tall, narrow tower - these presented challenges as the height increased due to a lack of foundation stability and most teetered down to the side. Other groups amassed large amounts of packed snow by rolling snowballs which presented their own challenges due to the size and weight of the snowball when it came time to stack it on. This snowball strategy proved the most steady for structures, particularly when smaller bits of snow were packed into the crevices to solidify the structure. The winning structure was 62 inches tall! 

In the discussion afterwards, kids reflected and shared their thoughts on what made for effective collaboration and cooperation as well as what problems arose. They identified team communication as important to the success of the group in this endeavor so that each group member could effectively accomplish their part in the construction. Listening was another necessary tactic as there needed to be agreement on one plan around which their efforts could be consolidated. Finally, each member taking responsibility for their job in the project helped the whole group to be successful. 

A lot of fun took place as well as a lot of interpersonal skills learning. Enjoy the pictures below!