🐴 From tree houses to chicken coops - learning by doing

The powerful template for math and science education hiding in your backyard...

Author

Charlie Deist
May 09, 2025

Just 4 days (!) until the launch of our new book, Open Education: How to Reimagine Learning, Ignite Curiosity, and Prepare Your Kids for Success. Join Matt Bowman and Isaac Morehouse, Tuesday, May 13 at 12:30pm MT, for a 45-minute live Q&A launch event and get massive launch-day discounts and exclusive bonuses available only to live attendees!

IN THIS EDITION:

🍎 Why traditional STEM education has it backwards (and what to do instead)
🍎 A father's treehouse lesson that changes everything about how children learn
🍎 Enter the Gingerbread Bridge Challenge - a delicious way to learn engineering 🍎 How backyard chickens create the ultimate hands-on learning laboratory

If you enjoy this edition, forward this email to a friend! First time reading? Subscribe and learn more at OpenEd.co.

💡 DEEP DIVE

THE LEARNING-BY-DOING TEMPLATE

When Jack Casdorph was nine, he asked his dad to build him a treehouse.

His father's response changed everything: "Nope. But I can help YOU build a treehouse."

What followed wasn't a carpentry lecture or an architecture worksheet. Instead, his father created a journey of progressive skill-building:

  1. First, Jack needed to become "monkey enough" at climbing trees

  2. Next came drilling lessons on the back deck

  3. Then design planning with careful measurements

  4. Finally, construction with newly acquired skills

The approach worked because Jack wasn't memorizing abstract concepts—he was solving real problems to achieve something meaningful. His motivation came from within, not from gold stars or grades.

Today, Jack carries this philosophy forward through his company Clean Your Craft, where he develops hands-on physics kits. His latest creation—the Gingerbread Bridge Challenge—invites children to build edible bridges that span 24 inches and support toy cars. Like his father before him, Jack knows that principles stick when they're discovered through building, not just reading.

This week, we also explored another powerful hands-on laboratory: backyard chickens. The parallels are somewhat striking.

THE PRACTICE-FIRST TEMPLATE FOR PARENTS

What connects treehouse building, gingerbread bridges, and chicken coops? They all offer a template for transforming how children learn:

1. Start with a compelling real-world project - Choose something your child genuinely wants to create—whether it's supporting chickens or spanning a gap with candy. When the goal matters, learning becomes inevitable.

2. Break it into skill-building steps - Like Jack's father did with the "monkey enough" climbing test, identify prerequisite skills. This creates natural progression points.

3. Let math projects emerge organically - When building a chicken coop, area calculations determine if your birds live in peace or reenact "Lord of the Flies" with feathers. When math prevents beloved pets from freezing at night, fractions suddenly matter.

4. Make science observational before theoretical - Gingerbread bridge builders learn applied physics when their structures collapse.

WHY PRACTICE-FIRST WORKS WHERE THEORY-FIRST FAILS

Traditional education typically follows a theory-first model:

  1. Memorize scientific method steps

  2. Study abstract formulas and concepts

  3. Complete artificial problems

  4. Maybe, eventually, do something real

Jack's approach flips this sequence:

  1. Start with an engaging project (treehouse, bridge, chicken coop)

  2. Encounter genuine problems

  3. Develop skills as needed

  4. Discover principles through experience

This reversal creates three powerful advantages:

Motivation becomes intrinsic
When a fourth-grader packages and sells her chicken eggs and creates a business plan, she's developing entrepreneurial skills through genuine interest, not classroom exercises.

Subject boundaries dissolve
Chicken keeping isn't "science time" or "math hour"—it's life. You calculate feed-to-egg ratios (math), research why your Buff Orpington sounds strange (biology), and petition the city council to increase the allowed flock size (civics).

Children learn at their natural pace
Different children progress through hands-on projects at different speeds, developing according to their unique timeline rather than an arbitrary standard.

What if the secret to better STEM education isn't more worksheets but more treehouse building, gingerbread bridges, and chicken coops?

🏆 TAKE THE CHALLENGE

GINGERBREAD BRIDGE CHALLENGE

Ready to put STEM learning into delicious practice? Join Jack Casdorph's Gingerbread Bridge Challenge:

The Challenge:

  • Build a bridge entirely from food items (crackers, pasta, candy - get creative!)

  • Design it to span a 24-inch gap and support a die-cast car like Hot Wheels

  • Test its strength by adding water bottles until it breaks

  • Film your creation and testing process

  • Submit by May 18, 2025

"I wanted to create something that anyone could do, regardless of age or access to tools," Jack explains. "Through this simple challenge, kids learn structural engineering principles through hands-on experimentation without a textbook in sight."

The best submissions will be featured in Jack's highlight video on the Clean Your Craft YouTube channel. This is a perfect example of how competition can motivate learning while keeping kids firmly in the "doing" end of the STEM spectrum.

Science education has it backwards → Jack Casdorph reveals the STEM spectrum from abstract (math) to applied (technology), arguing schools spend too much time on theory at the expense of practice. (Clean Your Craft)

Duolingo shifts to "AI-first" education → Language learning app plans to replace contractor work with AI systems to "remove bottlenecks," raising questions about the human element in education. (The Verge)

Backyard chicken keeping booms → From educational projects to practical food sources, families embrace chicken raising for hands-on learning that naturally integrates multiple subjects. (OpenEd Blog)

🛠️ TOOL OF THE WEEK

HUMAN-CENTERED LANGUAGE LEARNING 

While Duolingo embraces AI, Mango Languages offers an alternative that might be free with your library card. The platform features 70+ languages with three distinctive features:

  • Cultural context notes that explain traditions, history, and social norms

  • Special lessons built around cultural events and holidays

  • Pronunciation comparison with native speakers for authentic accent development Check if your library provides free access →

🧠 PARTING THOUGHT

SESAME STREET’S SCIENTIFIC METHOD

"My favorite version of the scientific method actually comes from watching Sesame Street with my kids: 'I wonder, what if, let's try.' I really like that simpler version of just 'let's try it.'"

— Jack Casdorph

Children are natural scientists - curious, experimental, and eager to test boundaries. Perhaps our most important job as parents and educators isn't to teach them the scientific method but to preserve the one they're born with.

Next time your child wonders about something, instead of explaining the answer, consider saying: "What do you think would happen if we tried it? Let's find out."

That’s all for this week!

– Charlie (the OpenEd newsletter guy)

P.S. If you’d prefer to just receive the weekly edition, you can change your subscription settings here.