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| Olivia, Griffin, Emmanuel, & Noah_Period 7 |
On Wednesday, August 21, 2013, Ms. Pinta's classes participated in the "Marshmallow Challenge" by building structures to support a marshmallow. The towers consisted of 20 strands of spaghetti, 1 yard of tape, and 1 yard of string. Teams were given 18 minutes to complete the challenge. Towers ranged from 11 1/2 inches to 29 inches high. In all, 14 out of 18 team built standing structures. . .13% higher than the national average!
It was interesting to watch the students as they encountered their first collaborative project in physical science. Some groups spent time organizing their materials, others brainstormed and planned their structures, some sketched ideas on paper, and others went right to building prototypes.
One group commented that they wished that they had planned a bit more before they started building because "once you start you already have (committed to) a working idea" its difficult to re-design it completely (Wes & Clay, Period 8). Their sentiment was echoed by those that had wished that they had planned for a more stable base. This lead to a discussion of "center of gravity" and shapes (triangle and pyramids) that provide a more stable structure than the teepee structure that seemed to be popular with the students.
The discussion, though, did not end with the "physics" of the structure. We also discussed the collaborative nature of this challenge. One group wrote that what they learned from this experience was "to work as a group and as a team (and to) not argue" (Olivia, Quinn, & Pablo, Period 3). Another group stated that what they felt was most important was "to use everyone's ideas to help make the tower better" (Emma, Riley, & Derek, Period 7).
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| Addison, Elizabeth, & Thomas _Period 8 |
What was ironic about the challenge is that when I picked my daughter up from school yesterday and asked her "what did you do today in school?" she replied, "We built sculptures out of spaghetti, tape, string, and marshmallows." I emailed her teacher and we, by email, brainstormed how we could facilitate our students sharing their successes and insights with each other. In class today the teams met to write letters and share pictures of their designs with the 5th grade students at Tremont. The Tremont teachers and I hope to be able to bring our students together at some point during the year to collaborate on a different design challenge. We hope that the two groups will benefit greatly from working (and designing) together!
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