Sculpting an Act of Faith and Charity

   

4th grade donated over 700 cans
of food with this sculpture.

     At the holiday assembly, the 4th grade unveiled an impressive sculpture of the American Flag. It was a work of art consisting of 373 cans of Campbell's Tomato Soup and 174 cans of Starkist tuna cans. But like any collaborative project or novel approach to learning, there were doubts. Would it work? Would it be appreciated? And considering the many needs of building a classroom community, teaching/learning the curriculum, and meeting the diverse needs and interests of an energetic student body, would it be a worth the time invested in this learning experience? So the teachers, Mrs. Aberman, Mrs. Mraz, Mrs. Nedwick, and myself and our students, slogged through the doubts, looking for reasons to believe and persevere.
    Students and teachers discussed construction strategies, engineering and mathematics, elements of design, and we experimented in the computer lab by building short towers of cans and wondered how high we could build, before they toppled. We had begun collecting cans in early November. Parents quickly responded to our requests for donations. And while we had ambitious designs on completing the sculpture in time for the Thanksgiving assembly, things...you know... happen. Still we persisted and took advantage of the extra time to sort through questions across the grade level and experiment with ideas that were sprouting across the grade level. We debated whether we should build a single layer construction or a double layer.
    The original Canstruction sculpture from which we drew our inspiration, used a double layer. But a double layer meant asking parents for nearly 100 additional soup cans, to match our original goal. A single layer could be built against a backboard, but would probably mean that we'd lose the bend in our sculpture that would make our flag look like it was waving in the breeze. It was clear that students wanted to keep the flag-wave, but acknowledged that we didn't have time to collect more cans. Fortunately, in visiting the rules for creating Canstruction sculptures, we learned we could use tape. YES! So teams of students began binding the cans that we had and later stacked them in columns on stage.
    Today, this sculpture only lives in memories and photos. Shortly after we unveiled this beautiful work of art, we deconstructed it, and donated over 700 cans of food to the Soup Kitchen at St. Peter's Church in Portchester, NY. Looking back, it was clear that this project was not just about collaboration, engineering, and design. It was an act of conscience shared by parents, students, and their teachers.  - Paul Tomizawa