The second grade students have been busy designing and building their own cities and towns. As part of their geography unit the children studied the differences between urban, rural and suburban communities. They discussed the needs and wants every community has and then set out to build their own communities. As a culminating PBL (Project Based Learning) activity, each group designed their community down to the smallest details of stop lights and street names. After meeting with an urban planner, the students revised their original plans and created blueprints. The next phase was building 3-D models. Along the way, the children learned about planning, measuring, scale and size. Parents came to see the work of their gifted children and enjoyed learning about the process and why the students incorporated certain design elements into their models. It was a great night!