Skyscraper Project and Planning with Clay

Last week in math class, students completed a 3D quick clay sculpture of their designs.  This allowed students to think more about the proportions within their designs.  Some questions that came up were: What percentage of the property do we want the building’s footprint to take up? If I want my building to have a feature on the top, should it be 1/3, 1/4, or 1/5 of the building? If that is 1/4 of the building, how many feet would that be in real life?

For the clay sculpture, students constructed armatures.  This gave students a chance to use the tools that they will use later in the project.  One inch of the clay sculpture is equal to eighty feet in real life.

Building Armatures

Some of the Clay Sculptures