| Paper Towers |
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The goal of this lesson was to build a tower out of paper and a little bit of tape in order to hold a weight. We briefly talked about ways to fold or arrange the paper to be stronger than just a flat sheet of paper. We forced them to draw up a sketch and explain their building plans before giving them materials, which was a really good measure since some of them clearly had not thought out their design. The students were given index cards, construction paper, printer paper, paper clips, and about 18 inches of tape (many of them begged for more, but we refused). As they completed their towers, the first weight was a graphing calculator, which most towers were able to hold. To those that finished quickly, we told them to find ways to improve their structure. They were really excited once their towers were able to hold multiple Harry Potter books (the record was the first 5 books of the 7!) |