STEM: Spaghetti & Marshmallow Towers

Tomorrow is the last day of school, but YES - we are learning until THE LAST MINUTE! Today my students worked in pairs to engineer a tower made out of only spaghetti and marshmallows. They did a superb job on this totally student directed project!

Engineering for Greatness

So the last few days we were able to squeeze in spend some time learning about what engineers do. Oh my goodness - there are so many kinds of engineers! We brainstormed and researched about the process of designing and engineering and came up with some steps.

We watched a fantastic video on PBS kids about a packaging engineer for Method products and then read a super adorable book, If I Built a Car - the illustrations are awesome!

Then, in table groups, we set to looking at all kinds of vehicles to think about the purpose of each feature and think about what features we would include in a vehicle we designed. 

On our own we sketched our vehicles, then labeled our diagrams. Then, we drew a final prototype and then wrote about why we included the things we included, who would use it, where...

Soon we will be using materials from a recent DonorsChoose project to sculpt our cars and paint them.

Kids are totally into this and so engaged! 

Update 9/15...
Kids are working on their AMAZING cars!