Now here's a school lesson kids can really throw themselves into.
Scott McKnight and his Year 4 classmates at Otonga School were given the ultimate homework assignment - build your own playground.
The 9-year-old was part of a class of children who designed and raised funds for
the new school feature.
A design they came up with last year as part of a class project so impressed principal Linda Woon and other teachers, they set the children a challenge - raise the money and we'll build a playground. However, their original design was deemed too elaborate and would have cost too much money.
So the group, which called itself The Mini Engineers, had to come up with a new, simpler design: The playground has a climbing wall, a cargo net, a climbing rope, monkey bars and a rope frame.
The pupils worked with Rotorua engineer Chris Anderson, who taught them the practices that would be used during such a project.
They had to design the playground, search for materials to use and look at existing designs.
The students held a market day to raise the money.
Said Scott: "We got each class in the school to make something, like drinks and food, and then we sold it to each other. We could only bring money to the market day which we had earned at home."
Scott was proud of what the group had achieved.
"It's cool that it is finished. It was a really good project."
He said his favourite part of playground was the cargo net. "Sometimes me and my friends have races to see who is fastest."
Kathryn Cochet, the teacher who organised the project, said the students quickly made links between what they were told about engineering and what other students wanted.
"They faced a lot of challenges in making decisions as a large group but learnt how to come to a consensus through ranking."
She said the project was a good learning experience.
"By the end of the project, they were better able to question their own ideas and contribute more cooperatively," she said.
