Soaring Towers: Building with Recycled Materials

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In this activity, learners will build the highest tower they can out of recycled materials. As they work on this activity, they explore which shapes and sizes make good tower bases, which work well in the middle, and how to make sure the configuration is stable, even when some of the shapes are quite irregular. Available as a downloadable pdf, and in Spanish. [Activity is publicly available through a web crawler capture on Archive.org.]

Quick Guide

Preparation Time:
Under 5 minutes
Learning Time:
45 to 60 minutes
Estimated Materials Cost:
free per group of students
Age Range:
Ages 4 - 14
Resource Type:
Activity
Language:
English

Materials List (per group of students)

  • recycled yogurt containers of different sizes, small boxes, or other objects that can be stacked

Keywords

Subjects

  • Engineering and Technology
    • Engineering
      • Civil Engineering
    • Technology
      • Construction
  • Mathematics
    • Geometry
      • Solid Geometry
    • Measurement
      • Units of Measurement
      • Size and Scale
    • Number and Operations
      • Number Systems
    • Reasoning and Proof
  • The Nature of Technology
    • The Design Process
      • Troubleshooting and Maintenance
  • The Nature of Science
    • The Scientific Process
      • Formulating Explanations

Informal Categories

  • Arts and Crafts
  • Model Building

Audience

To use this activity, learners need to:

  • see

Learning styles supported:

  • Involves teamwork and communication skills
  • Involves hands-on or lab activities

Other

This resource is part of:

Access Rights:

  • Free access

By:

Source Collection

  • Mixing in Math

Rights:

  • , © 2010, TERC, Inc., MA., 2010

Funding Source:

  • NSF, ESI-0406675 and DRL-0713537