Wareham Elementary students float to engineering success

Every Thanksgiving, millions watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade march through the heart of New York City but at Wareham Elementary School, it’s used as a learning opportunity.

Five years ago, Elizabeth Costa, a science, technology, engineering and math teacher had the idea of teaching her second grade students the engineering design process by having them study the floats in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, and then designing their own.

Thus began the annual Thanksgiving parade at Wareham elementary. The fifth annual parade made its way through the halls of the elementary school Wednesday, Nov. 26 featuring 39 cardboard floats made by teams of second graders. 

“It went awesome this year and it gets bigger and better every year,” said Costa.

Five years ago, Costa had the idea of teaching her second grade students the engineering design process by having them study the floats in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, and then designing their own.

For nearly two months, teams of second grade engineers work together to build a “float” out of a cardboard box. Costa said the students draw on the box to plan their design, put together a materials list and spend two weeks building their float which is designed to look like an animal.

“They have to work together to identify what needs to be on the box and what parts of the animal to include,” Costa said. “A big part of it is the students compromising because everyone has all these different ideas but we can’t put every idea onto it.”

Once complete the teams parade their creations through the school in what has become one of Wareham elementary’s favorite annual traditions, according to Costa.

“A lot of fourth graders tell me ‘I remember doing that in second grade and that was so much fun’ which is awesome,” she said.

One of the parade's nearly 160 participants, Blake St. Germaine said the parade was “a lot of fun,” but it got warm in the school.

“We had to keep swapping so my friend would hold the sign and I’d hold the string and then he’d hold the string and I’d hold the sign,” Blake said.

She added seeing Principal Dan Sylvestre in a tutu was her favorite of the parade.

Olivia Prunei, one of Blake’s classmates, said the project was a lot of work but she learned how to work well with others.

“When we already finished everything someone wanted to add legs but snakes don’t even have legs,” Olivia said.

Costa added teaching students to work together is another big part of the project, even if the kids don’t realize that’s what they are learning.

“We have an alligator and the kids were debating how to do the scales. Some kids wanted to draw them, others wanted to use paper and glue to make it more three-dimensional so they are talking about the pros and cons of each,” she said. “My role is to take a step back and let them communicate together.”