“Aw!” cried Autumn, as Kinzley used her “huge muscles” to break off the branch to add to their shelter. “Sorry, Autumn!” said Kinzley, as she added the branch to their beautifully made shelter. The group stepped back and marveled at the shelter they had just made. “Wow,” said Roni, “I can’t believe we made… this!”

Here at Cannon Falls Middle School/High School the 6th graders that were in the winter STEM class had the opportunity to build outdoor survival shelters in the school forest. There were about 5 groups, each made up of 4-5 members. The students were supposed to imagine they were in a deadly survival situation where they needed to act fast and create a shelter. The shelter had to be able to sustain and protect all members of the group, shed different types of weather, and to be able to hold up if a natural disaster (such as an earthquake) were to occur. 

“The most challenging thing about this project,” says Kinzley Rezac, a student who was a part of the STEM project, “was probably the amount of time we had. We only had about 4 days to work.” After doing the math, it ended up totalling about 117 minutes to work, after taking out the time it took to get there and back. They also couldn’t break anything off of living trees; they had to use sticks and twigs found on the ground.

Another challenge these students had to face was that they were limited to the amount of space they had to build their shelter. The teacher, Mrs. Thompson, had boundaries that everyone had to stay inside. This was intentional, because she wanted it to be as realistic as possible. She wanted them to think about all of the possibilities. What if they were stranded on an island or surrounded by water? They can’t just swim away; they have to stay on the island and learn how to survive in the terrain and climate you’re in. She also had to approve of the shelter design because of the limited amount of space and time they had. Thompson continued, “I think that the best approach to building a shelter in these conditions is to take full advantage of the tarp. What I mean by that is to find a perfect location where you can use all of your materials to their fullest potential.”

Most teams tried to do this, but there weren’t very many good areas where there was a good location or tree, which added to the level of difficulty.                

The students didn’t have to worry about finding storage space for food, or a designated place in the shelter to have a fire. Some students chose to make a circle out of rocks and put some twigs in the middle to act like a fire, but it was not a requirement. 

The Winter STEM class here at Cannon Falls Middle School/High School made outdoor survival shelters out in the school forest. It was not an easy task, and lots of people struggled to get done in time.

Lots of the shelters were about the same; they all had a teepee-like look. Lots of people liked this project, and they were all lucky to be in the winter STEM class, because it only occurs during the winter season.