When it came to building their homes, early Native Americans did not have the same types of tools, materials and technology available to home builders today: computer programs, blueprints, weatherproofing. Instead, the Native Americans used what they had on hand and what they could find in nature to create a home that would keep them as safe and as protected as possible.

The students in Gail DeRobbio’s fourth-grade classroom and Madison Fedak and Kevin Hitt’s fifth-grade experienced the challenge in the days leading up to Thanksgiving. How can you build a teepee to house at least one person, using nothing but masking tape and past issues of the Cranston Herald, the Warwick Beacon and the Providence Journal.

The fifth-grade students studied teepees and Native Americans for two months, and the fourth-graders learned basic information about teepee building during a background lesson DeRobbio taught early in the week.

“I showed them a YouTube video that told the history of how the teepee came about and showed step by step how the Lakotas built their teepee; it showed them the process. I also read them ‘The Storm-Makers Tipi’ by Paul Goble,” said DeRobbio.

With some background knowledge and basic materials at their disposal, the students applied their science, technology, engineering, art and math (STEAM) skills, and worked in groups to design a teepee to meet the criteria.

Sorted into small groups by the teachers and given a packet of papers for starting their work, the students brainstormed the parts of a teepee, drew out several different plans and, at the end, evaluated their process and final product as well as their group's ability to work together to achieve the goal. Students transferred their plans to the newspaper, creating a life-sized, full-scaled teepee that at least one member of the group would fit inside of.

Throughout the process, the students documented the steps they were taking along the way, either using devices they brought in or those that were provided for them at school. A final digital record showcased the process from beginning to end. They had approximately two hours on Tuesday afternoon and two hours on Wednesday afternoon to complete the challenge, and the teachers provided no help, other than to answer clarifying questions about the process.

Hitt encouraged students to stop and think periodically, especially during the construction phase. Fedak agreed.

"As you are going along, analyze what you are doing to see if it is successful or not," said Fedak. "If it's not, then look for improvements that you can make."

Letting the students make mistakes and work through them was a challenge for DeRobbio, who found it difficult to bite her tongue at times.

“It's so hard not to tell them what to do because they are doing things quite differently than I would do them,” she said.

DeRobbio's class made significant progress by mid-afternoon during their building session the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.

“Last night, they all went home and slept on it,” DeRobbio said on Wednesday afternoon. “They thought about some of the issues they were having and some groups came back in and totally scratched yesterday's design and started over.”

Across the hall, the fifth-graders worked hard on the initial part of the process on Tuesday afternoon, and did a lot of thinking that night as well, coming in Wednesday ready to build.

Hitt and Fedak circulated through the two rooms, watching and listening as the students worked through the process.

While the instructions were all the same, every group produced a teepee that a member of their group could indeed sit in, and each finished product was individual. The project was marked correct as long as it fulfilled all of the project requirements.

There were tall teepees and short ones, round ones and oval ones. Some teepees constructed triangular frames with rolled up newspaper, others used bent frames made out of rolled up newspaper. One used the masking tape to make their frame and covered it with the newspaper. Each teepee had room for at least one person inside. Some fit their whole group inside. As the main part of the project was finished, some groups added on additional details such as flags or doors. The students documented the entire process.

As DeRobbio's class debriefed on Wednesday afternoon, it appeared many of the Tuesday roadblocks had to do with how the students were (or were not) working together.

“We had a plan but it was just not being followed,” said Tomas Negalha. “People were just doing what they wanted.”

Classmate Melissa Gonzalez agreed that the key to success was working together.

“If you use teamwork, you can make it happen,” she said.