STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) class for DCD third graders this winter has been centered around the themes of teamwork, problem-solving and materials exploration. Each class meeting students engage in a particular project that will challenge both their design thinking and teamwork skills. The Marshmallow challenge was used as kind of an icebreaker and a warm up exercise to get students in the zone for working together. Students were tasked with creating a rather tall structure out of thin spaghetti that can support a sizable marshmallow on top without collapsing under its weight. The Marshmallow Challenge is originally the brain child of Peter Skillman (known for creative product design and innovation) but made famous by technologist Tom Wujec in his “Build a Tower, Build a Team” Ted talk.
Using limited materials consisting of 20 pieces of spaghetti, string, and tape and 15 minutes, students had to build a free-standing structure. While the children were very excited about the end product, the process was the centerpiece of learning for this first challenge. They had to figure out how to work as a team, listening to and incorporating each other’s ideas so that everyone could be involved. They learned the importance of having an initial plan, how to assign roles to individual members, how to regroup if something wasn’t working right, and how to communicate with each other to make progress. And in addition to the importance of rapid prototyping different ideas from the group, they learned the power of humor and laughter to diffuse the frustration level when the solution to the problem at hand doesn’t come easy!
Some great structures emerged from this engaging exercise, some more stable than others. Third graders found that the ones with a wider base e.g. a stronger foundation, were able to support a top heavy marshmallow. Learning to work together and sticking to the task even when you encounter failure, went a long way in creating a stronger foundation for collaborative work in the next challenge for these third grade engineers.
