For our first activity of the spring semester we decided to refresh student's memory of the engineering design process, sturdy building, and types of engineering with a paper tower activity. We gave the students 8 sheets of paper, 2 large index cards, a desk's length of tape and 5 paper clips to construct their tower out of. However, before we began the lesson we gave students a worksheet to draw out their design. Most of the students had well thought out plans before they began building their towers. Students then built their towers. As the students completed their towers they began to test without asking. In some ways this was a good thing because the students who finished early were not bored. On the other hand, I think that students who had not finished by the time the testing started felt rushed, or were distracted. Because the students had to go to a concert, there was not much time to wrap up the activity. Overall this lesson went well for the following reasons: the lesson fit nicely into one hour, all the students were able to complete some sort of tower, the students used the engineering design process well, and the class size was not too big. It would have been nice to have time to wrap up the activity with a class discussion.
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