Thomas Metcalf School sixth-graders designed and built a tiny house in their makerspace class that Home Sweet Home Ministries [HSHM] will put in its new shelter village.
Makerspace teacher Kristi Sutter said her students came up with the idea in January, before hearing about the shelter village HSHM was already planning.
“The kids put together a pitch to Home Sweet Home and Salvation Army and offered it as a donation, and Home Sweet Home accepted it," Sutter said. "We kept our [tiny house] pretty basic right now so that it would fit in with the rest of the community that Home Sweet Home had already envisioned."
Dream big
In their makerspace class, students were assigned an open-ended class project with the goal of identifying a local problem and coming up with a solution.
The students started with a survey that they sent out to Bloomington-Normal community members to identify local problems. Housing insecurity, food insecurity, job security and potholes were the top concerns found in the survey.
After getting the results, Sutter told her students to brainstorm project ideas and “dream big.”
Some students in Sutter’s class came up with the idea for a tiny house because it aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which Metcalf School uses in its curriculum.
“Throughout lots of discussions we concluded on some sort of tiny house or sleeping shed or some sort of shelter for the people in poverty,” incoming seventh-grader Maya Sierra said. “We could help give them a garden or something to also provide fresh food.”
The students got to work, breaking off into small groups. Some students worked on designing the house and garden, some worked on building the foundation and others constructed the walls.
The tiny house has two windows on opposite walls, one large window above the door for lots of sunlight, enough space for a twin-sized bed with storage underneath and a fold-out table.
The materials were paid for through grants from local organizations, the Metcalf School parent teacher organization and donations from several families.
Life skills
While working on the tiny house project, students learned valuable life skills.
As part of the research process, Sutter said the students had to make cold calls to different local organizations who were helping the Bloomington-Normal community.
“[I am] trying to build some of those communication and confidence skills in reaching out to organizations, really just trying to help them build some advocacy skills for real life down the road,” Sutter said.
The project also helped build teamwork skills and a sense of trust for incoming seventh-grader Kayson Link.
“We all had the same idea, we all could believe in each other, we all could lift each other up,” Link said.
Sierra added that the class was not always on the same page about the project, so they had to learn to work through conflicts.
“We knew in the long [run] that this would be a tiny house going to help somebody, but how could we get there working together?” Sierra said.
Interdisciplinary learning
The tiny house project gave students the opportunity to practice skills from other school subjects, including math.
Sutter said her students did all of the measurements and cutting for the physical house. A parent helped the students put the pieces together.
“I mean if you look at what we built, you could see that what the teachers have been teaching us have really worked,” Link said.
The students also designed and built two vertical gardens and a rain barrel system outside the tiny house.
“We had measured and cut all the wood to figure out what length and height and everything that could go into play. And then we ended up building it to the certain size of the planters to make sure that the plants could all fit in the garden,” Sierra said.
Link said the most challenging part was cutting all the right angles at all the right length, while trying not to mess up.
“But people knew that if somebody messed something up, it's whatever. We have extra pieces and all that,” Link said.
Sutter said her biggest challenge was managing 26 kids all at once and making sure everybody had something to work on.
Impact
Sierra said, “Never did I imagine I'd create a mini house sitting out there now that people could really live in.”
The project has helped bring awareness to some of the students who did not know how big of a problem poverty was according to Sierra.
“Those are the moments that you hope for as a teacher,” Sutter said, “that they feel empowered to make change in the world, and that they know that they can do those things at an early age. And it's not just the adults in the world who can make positive change.”
The tiny house will be donated to HSHM for its shelter village, The Bridge, which will be a low-barrier, non-congregate shelter consisting of 50 tiny sleeping cabins on a fully enclosed campus, with a total occupancy of 60 adults. Construction is expected to be completed this winter.
There is a groundbreaking ceremony for The Bridge at 10 a.m. Thursday, July 10, at 104 East Oakland Ave.
