Cardboard Challenge

Students from across Spring Branch ISD took part in the Global Cardboard Challenge during September and October, joining up to 1 million students worldwide in designing and building awesome creations using cardboard, other recycled materials and their own imagination.

The 2-year-old Global Cardboard Challenge is sponsored by the Imagination Foundation, which has an ambitious goal of igniting youth creativity around the world.

At Spring Forest Middle School on Oct. 5, for example, students in Kenneth Jones’ eighth-grade English and language arts classes came together in front of the school and expressed their inner creative spirit with only cardboard and packing tape.

The challenge for Spring Forest Middle students was simple – Create! Three design types were suggested – a Useful Product, such as a table or chair; Arcade Game; and WOW! That Thing is Cool! About 30 students, including four families, came together to dream in cardboard and tape.

Several tables of different sizes were built, but some students had even bigger ideas, instructor Jones said. “Many students constructed unusual houses with pitched roofs and garages.

Others attempted the construction of a ball toss arcade game. A father-and-daughter team made a chair that would support the weight of an eighth-grader. One student, with the help of his entire family, built an 8-foot tall rocket,” he said.

“As a way of demonstrating that students can and will perform if engaged in an activity where they are in charge or how they can express themselves, the Spring Forest Middle School Global Cardboard Challenge was a great success,” Jones also said.

The Imagination Foundation supported a Global Day of Play on Oct. 5. Registration is open this year through Nov. 1 at the foundation’s website: www.cardboardchallenge.com

The foundation’s goal is to engage 1 million children in creative play in 70 or more nations. Last year’s challenge inspired more than 270 mostly spontaneous events in 41 countries, according to the foundation.

Some students raised thousands of dollars for good causes. With event sponsorship from Mattress Firm, a separate Cardboard Challenge was held Oct. 18 at Shadow Oaks Elementary School. Shadow Oaks teacher Kerry Cashiola reports that 250 students spent Friday morning designing in cardboard.

“The fifth-grade students constructed a city complete with a hospital and tree house. Second-grade students used their imaginations to build banks, tents, houses and even a sailboat. Some kindergarten students made pumpkins and a rocket ship.

All the students involved had a great time imagining,” Cashiola said. The Mattress Firm provided cardboard to students at Shadow Oaks students.