Feb 11 - 8The Orozco girls were very excited for our new visitor Juanita to visit not once, but twice on February 11th and 18th. Juanita is an advocate for sustainability through technology, innovation and design, she also the founder of BIM for better. During Juanita’s visit she explained to the girls how and why famous land marks in Chicago are built, as well as how to create your own neighborhood.

Once the girls were settled they were surprised to see so many jenga blocks and paper cylinders. Juanita explained to them how to build a building in this crazy windy city, and the first example she gave them was the Willis Tower. The girls knew right away where and how that building was created, but they didn’t know the difference between a beam and a column. The girls were very intrigued. After a quick background on buildings, Juanita finally let their creativity shine. She split them up into three groups, each group were in competition with each other. The prize, of course, were bragging rights. The two rules were that the buildings can not collapse if wind is present and whoever had the tallest building won. The girls were very excited to get started. Joselyn said “Emily and Karolina wanted to build a castle, but I wanted something tall, so we compromised. They were able to build a castle and I was able to make it tall.” Elizabeth told me “we’re going to build ours the tallest ever!” Her group had a great tactic of placing jenga blocks inside the paper cylinder, so that the cylinder will stand even if there is wind. This idea was great because it’s what helped them win!

That next week Juanita was visiting, she decided to warm up the girls brain with a little exercise. She had them come up with the different buildings they see everyday or visit the most. Most of the building and stores the girls came up with were 90% food places, this was no surprise to me. After the warm up, the girls were able to create a map of their own neighborhood. Oasis was getting super creative and drew the pattern of her roof; it wasn’t the basic square with the word ‘house’ written on the inside. All the other girls were drawing their school, house, and the popular food stores they visit. Each paper came out different and the girls were able to compare afterwards. The girls really enjoyed having Juanita visit. They were so excited and determine to make the perfect building. Juanita taught them so much on buildings and neighborhoods, they can’t wait for her return!

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