World War II Artifacts

Our 7^th grade Social Studies teacher has an awesome unit on WWII.  His first year in our school he had kids clamoring for books on the topic.  They couldn’t get enough.  I told him that I didn’t know what he was doing, but he needed to keep doing it if it made students want to read historical fiction. It’s only gotten better each year he’s been here.   This year he decided to include a little more about Churchill’s Ungentlemanly Warfare – in other words spies. 

Like the Native American project earlier this school year he had students select topics of interest from the era.  He included a range of topics like baseball, the Tuskegee Airmen, The Night Witches, Churchill and of course spies.  Students had to complete an informational piece as well as produce an artifact from the era. 

Our planning for the session included a couple of informal conversations about what he was doing and what he wanted the students to include.  He provided the dates of when students would be coming down.  I knew to expect them all throughout the day.  Unless they were working as a group, he would only send down a couple at a time while they created their project in Tinkercad.  For some students, this is their first time using the free online software. 

When I introduce Tinkercad to our students I show them how to manipulate the shapes:  change   I then have them find an image of what they want their printed item to look like.  Because they are making their objects from scratch, it helps to print out the image so we can talk about the shapes they need and how to fit them together.  For those of you familiar with 3D printing, I know it would be much easier for the students to go into Thingiverse and find an item that has already been created, but I want them to learn to make their own.  

views, resize, adjust scale, etc.

Once we’ve gone through the shapes they start building in Tinkercad.  I generally have them try to keep the dimensions as close to 4” as possible.  This ensures they can be printed during the school day and that I can get more than one printed each day. 

Students created a range of products such as: secret compartment keys, spy cameras, medals, goblets, spy cameras, and model airplanes.  The results were pretty amazing.  The students did a fantastic job planning and creating each item.