Yi Min's Great Wall
EiE Unit, A Sticky Situation: Designing Walls
Yi Min, a young girl living outside of Beijing, China, has a problem. A hungry bunny has started munching on the plants in her classroom garden. A trip to the Great Wall of China inspires Yi Min to enlist the help of her friend Chen in building a Great Wall of their very own.
Grandfather, a former materials engineer, tells Yi Min about the materials he developed in his work. Yi Min begins to explore the properties of earth materials, and she realizes that not all materials are created equal when it comes to building a wall. Together, Yi Min and Chen design and build a bunny-proof solution for the school garden.
Readers are invited to create and test a wall made out of earth materials. With some creativity and knowledge of the engineering design process, everyone can engineer!