Archive for December 3rd, 2008

03 12 2008

Towers of Paper

Posted by: Mrs C in Class work, mucking about

Yesterday, while the Grade 6 students were off having fun at Secondary School for the day, the Grade Five students were given a challenge, to make the tallest free-standing tower possible using only:

  •  ten sheets of newspaper
  • 10 icypole sticks
  • 10 drinking straws
  • half a stick of Blu-tak
  • masking tape
We had to design our models first, then build and evaluate them. The building part was the best – working in groups of three it took us about an hour to build our structures. The challenge was to get them to stand up without any support or without sticking them to the ground! 

When we had our 15 minutes left warning, the teachers decided to try the challenge for themselves. Miss K, Mrs B and Mrs C collected the allowed equipment and in less than 15 minutes had built a tower that stood 3 metres (10 feet) high! And it stood without help! Such champions, but some of the kids said it wasn’t fair because the teachers had bigger brains with more science in them. Hmmm. The last picture in the gallery below is the teachers’ tower – what do you think?

Of the students, one groups were wildly successful, with their tower standing 1.8m (6 feet) high. Some other towers had to be measured lying down, as they fell over – and of course, the aim was the highest, not longest tower! So 10cm high and 2 metres long doesn’t win. :-)  

We learned a lot about how to make things stand, where to put the heaviest parts and what shapes are strongest. But we can’t tell you here because next week we are going to challenge the Grade 6 students and we are aiming to beat them!

 

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