We began a study of structures by comparing natural structures to man-made structures. We looked at some of the very tall evergreen trees around our school to notice their shape and structure. We compared the trees to images we looked at of famous towers such as the CN Tower and the Eiffel Tower. The students compared the features of an example of each, looking for commanilities.
After this, I gave each student 30 straws and a roll of tape and told them their challenge was to make the tallest, most stable free-standing tower they could. They had about half an hour for this and it was amazing to watch their approaches- guessing and testing, using background knowledge (lego or block building), thinking about the tower pictures we looked at or total randomness.
We measured their towers and did a stability test (a gentle push on the tower to make sure it kept standing) and then I asked the students to look around at other towers to get ideas for improvements to theirs. They had about another 15 minutes to make final improvements.
I liked how some of the "improvements" they made included adding Canadian flags to the tops of their towers!
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