LEGO Smart

Constructing A City

LEGO Smart Creativity Contest Entry
By Rebecca Hite, Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools

In this activity each team of students (3-4) will receive a package of LEGO bricks and a base plate. Students will first discuss what they feel are the central features of a city. What details are unique to these urban places? They should create a list and a rough sketch of their urban landscape. Students will then construct their city model using the bricks in the LEGO Smart Kit. Once completed, they will present their model to the class. In their group presentations, students should justify their selections within their model in additions to challenges they experienced within the activity. After presentations, they will compare their models to existing models of US urban development to compare and contrast between the models. Students will debate if these models are adequate representations of reality.

Lesson Learned: Students will use inquiry to design a typical city landscape using LEGO bricks. They will work in teams using their prior knowledge to construct a typical American urban landscape prior to their unit on Urbanization and Cities. (AP Human Geography Curriculum.)  Through this engaging methodology of modeling, students will derive the essential components of an urban/city landscape (Central Business District, Zoning, Symbolic features) and then compare them to determine how they reflect various city models of US cities (Concentric Zone Model, Multiple Nuclei model, and Sector Model).