Essential Questions

1. Consider the words of R. Buckminster Fuller, "If the success or failure of this planet and of human beings depended on how I am and what I do, how would I be? What would I do?" What would you do, and how would you use math and technology skills to put your ideas into action?
2. How did R. Buckminster Fuller use his technological skills mixed with his creativity to help the citizens of the world help each other?

• Build an Ecological City:
  Objective: Students will use recyclable items such as food trays, egg cartons, cardboard, and Styrofoam to build an ecologically sound city. The city must contain life-sustaining areas such as a water source and green space. Housing and food sources should be included. Students need to make sure that any factories or pollutants will not infiltrate the water shed. They must also allow for roads and parking.
  Materials: Ask students to bring in anything that they would normally throw away or recycle. Packaging is great because it comes in so many different shapes and textures. You’ll need an old box for each team. (The boxes from a case of soda cans work great.) Use clay for the base, or glue and tape to the cardboard.
  Activity: Ask the students to follow this structure...Use an old card board box with the sides cut off leaving one or two inches all around as the border. Flatten some clay inside as the base to stand up items. Roads and rivers can be painted or made of old string or poster board. Begin building a city. Be creative...just watch for conflicts such as a golf coarse next to a stream. (Fertilizer pollution) Have the students figure out more efficient ways to deal with fast food drive-up restaurants and parking dilemmas. After the cities are built, students can share their ideas to the rest of the group.

• Straw Shapes: A PBS lesson plan
  
  
• Geodesic Dome: Electrical Conduit Model by Fuller, Sadao, and Zung
  
  
• Geodesic Dome: Shoji Sadao - PS Model by Fuller, Sadao, and Zung
  
  
• Constructing a Geodesic Dome...by Scientific American
  
  
• Structural Engineering Design

Additional Educator Resources

Books:

• Buckminster Fuller: An Anthology for a New Millennium edited by Thomas Zung published by St. Martin's Griffin
• Critical Path by Buckminster Fuller
• Bucky Works: Buckminster Fuller's Ideas for Today by J. Baldwin
• Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth by Buckminster Fuller
• Synergetics: Explorations in the the Geometry of Thinking by Buckminster Fuller
  
  

Videos:

• Buckminster Fuller: the Lost Interviews
• Thinking Out Loud
  
  

Websites:

• Buckminster Fuller
• Dymaxion Map Animation
• PBS...Thinking Out Loud
• 34 Ways to Use a Dome in the Classroom
• Geodesic Dome Education

Activities:

• Education Index...Technology

Journal Topic 

Thinking over the lyric...

"It's hard to tell the truth when no one wants to listen,
when no one really cares what's going on.
And it's hard to stand alone when you need someone beside you,
your spirit, your faith must be strong."

...how would you handle a situation when you strongly believed in a cause and your friends or family couldn't or wouldn't understand its importance.

Student Self-Evaluation

1. This speaker emphasized…
2. One fact that surprised me was…
3. I will always remember…
4. The important message I would like to pass on is…

Teacher Evaluation

1. The student used the journal question as a reflection after the program.
2. The student was able to answer the self-evaluation questions.
3. The student worked as part of a team to build an ecological city.