Science Lesson Plan

Towers

1 hour lesson
Essential Question: What strategies will I use to complete each center?
**these centers are meant to be exploratory so I will not tell students how to make each object but will
first let them try it on their own. If they need help I will guide them by showing images of real towers
and asking them to take notice of how these items were built. After everyone has had a turn at each
center come back as a class to reflect on what they learned in each center.

Outcome: Problem Solving Through Technology

Objective: Students will be able to explain strategies they used to make a strong, stable tower.

Introduction:
So far we have looked at different materials and different fasteners. Today we are going to build towers
using different materials and different fasteners.
Review: Partner Share: What is a material?
Review: Partner Share: What is a fastener?

Student Activity:

-Explain to students that this activity will focus on seeing whether students are able to identify the
process by which the object was made and strategies they used. You might come across
problems and will need to rethink and start over. I want you to think about what strategies you
are taking to make a strong tower.
-Students will be encouraged to talk at centers and share ideas.

-Explain Centers: (each center will have a sheet with questions on it. I will be circulating asking
students these questions?)
1. Straw Tower
-Build a tower made from straws and masking tape. May cut up the straws
-Questions at center: Can you build a tower with drinking straws? What shapes will
you make? How are you going to tape the straws together?
-Materials needed: scissors, tape, pictures of towers
-Reflection after center: How did you build your straw tower? How did you figure out
the best way to build a tower? What problems did you come across? How did you
fix that problem?
Overlapping straws to make it more stable, stronger. Doesn’t bend as easy.
2. Block/Cup Tower
- Building a tower made from blocks and cups

-Questions at center: Can you build a tall tower with cups? How can you
build the tallest tower?
 -Materials Needed: cups, blocks, ball, pictures of tower
-Reflection after center:
Could you build a taller tower out of cups using a pyramid shape? Why is
this shape strong? Does mixing blocks and cups work better? Why?
Discuss having a strong base and how that prevents the tower from
falling over. All the weight is at bottom. So it can support the other cups.

3. Marshmallow Toothpick Tower

- Building a tower with marshmallows and toothpicks:
-Question at center-What shape is strongest?
-Materials needed: marshmallows, toothpicks, pictures of towers
-Reflection after center:How did you make your tower stronger? Was a square or
triangle stronger? Demonstrate triangle is strongest shape.

Center Expectations:
-You will stay at your center until I give the signal to switch. When I give the switch signal the
toothpick/marshmallow center and straw tower center may put their creations on the back counter. -
Everyone will clean up their center to how it was before they got to it.
-Toothpicks are sharp please be careful not to poke yourself or anyone else.
-Do not eat the marshmallows please. If there is leftover at the end I may (or may not) decide to hand
them out.
-Do not walk around the room with materials...stay at center
-Work in partners at center on the same tower or make your own.
-I will come around and take pictures

Closure:
Will probably not get done in one lesson but will have a quick share of things that students have
discovered about building and joining materials as a closure and then clean up. Ask: If someone has
never built a ______ tower before what advice would you give them?

Formative Assessment:
-Observation, jot down notes as students work through the centers. See whether students can
identify problems and come up with solutions to their problems. Are students able to identify the
steps they took? Are students able to describe what works well and what doesn’t?
-Take pictures of creations. Hang it up in class so throughout the rest of the unit students can
refer to the images for reminders on ways to best fasten/build objects.

Reflection:
This lesson went very well. Students were engaged. They were interacting and talking about
their work for example, words like stable came up and they talked about how to make the tower
stronger by including a base. For students who weren’t really talking through their thinking, I
was able to come around and ask them questions such as “What do you notice about the
bottom of your tower? Why do you think that makes it stronger?” I would also lead them to
compare from one station to the next. Can you use what you did at the other station in this
one? Materials and fasteners are changing but the concept is still the same.

Things I would do differently next time I taught this lesson is remind students to think about what
is working and what isn’t. I could have a quick teach in the middle of the lesson where I draw on
someone’s experience building a tower. As we did not get this done in one class we finished it
the next day. As a quick mini lesson the next day, I would perhaps make a vocabulary chart as
a class and talk about it as students were using some great words such as base, stable,
pyramid.

I did not realize this at first but the centers offered a great variety. The cups/blocks center was
perhaps the easiest, the toothpick and marshmallow one in the middle and the straws and tape
one was the most difficult. This was not done intentionally but reflecting on it afterwards I think
this worked really well because students who needed something a little more easy had a way to
demonstrate their learning and students who needed a bit more of a challenge had the
opportunity to challenge themselves. Students could also transfer their knowledge from one
center to the next so perhaps next time I group students I would place students who need a bit
more support at the easier center.

Marshmallow Center

What shapes will I use to make

a strong tower?
 What shape is the strongest?

Cups/Block Center

Which way of building blocks makes

the strongest wall?
Can you test your block wall by
rolling a ball against it?

How can you build the tallest tower

using cups?

Straw Center

What shapes will you make?

How will you join straws together
using tape?