4th Grade: Critical thinking grows from real-world challenge

A potential client recently challenged our Lower School entrepreneurship students to come up with a solution for her 64-ounce water bottle not fitting in her car’s cup holder. Assistant Head of School Jen Halliday and facilitator of our new Fourth Grade Entrepreneurial Studies class, walked the students through the process of defining the problem in front of them. “You have to know your client,” she said. The students took measurements at the client’s car and entered the research stage of their design-thinking journey ahead of the ideation and prototype stages. The increasing threat of plastic pollution and the environmental consequences of single-use water bottles are propelling the demand for reusable bottles, according to a market analysis report by Grand View Research. The global market size was valued at $8.8 billion in 2020 and is expected to show a compound annual growth rate of 4 percent through 2028. Can our students engineer a solution for this consumer demand in this billion-dollar industry?