Easy Pipe-Cleaner Tower Challenge
In this lesson, children will take the Pipe Cleaner Tower Challenge and compete to see who can build the tallest freestanding tower with 15 pipe cleaners.
Learning Goals:
This lesson will help children meet the following educational standards:
- Demonstrate curiosity about the world and begin to use the practices of science and engineering to answer questions and solve problems
- Explore concepts and information about the physical, earth and life sciences
- Understand important connections and concepts in science and engineering
Learning Targets:
After this lesson, children should be more proficient at:
- Developing beginning skills in the use of science and engineering practices such as observing, asking questions, solving problems, and drawing conclusions
- Identifying, describing and comparing the physical properties of objects
- Exploring the effect of force on objects inside and outside of the early childhood environment
- Understanding rules to follow when investigating and exploring
- Using nonstandard and standard scientific tools for investigation
Step 1: Gather materials.
- The book, Look at That Building: A First Book of Structures, by Scot Ritchie
- 15 pipe cleaners for each 2-4 student engineering team
Step 2: Introduce activity.
- Read: Look at That Building: A First Book of Structures
- Discuss the types of buildings in the book. Ask: "Are there tall buildings in your town? What building do you think is the tallest? What is the tallest building you have been in?"
- Ask: "Could the children design a building out of pipe cleaners if they were engineers?"
- Pass out 15 pipe cleaners to each engineering team.
- Say: "Each engineering team will participate in our Pipe Cleaner Challenge. The challenge is to build the tallest possible freestanding tower using only the 15 pipe cleaners provided. The team with the tallest pipe-cleaner tower wins!
Step 3: Engage children in lesson activities.
- When the children are done building, walk around and measure the different tower heights and point out differences between designs.
- Discuss what worked and what didn't work and how the children overcame any obstacles.
Step 4: Engineering vocabulary
- Base: The part of a building that sits on the ground
- Proportion: The measurement or size of different parts of a building
- Skyscraper: A tall building with a steel or concrete skeleton frame, an elevator, and different floors where people live or work
- Story: A floor in a building
Step 5: Extensions
- To extend this lesson, use any of the following combinations of materials for tower challenges:
- Balloons and tape
- Cup Stacking
- Index cards and tape
- Newspaper and tape
- Spaghetti noodles and marshmallows
- Toothpicks and gumdrops
- As the children become more confident about their building capabilities, ask them to draw their towers before or after they complete the lesson.
Suggested Books
- Bridges and Tunnels: Investigate Feats of Engineering With 25 Projects by Donna Latham
- How Was That Built?: The Stories Behind Awesome Structures by Roma Agrawal
- Iggy Peck, Architect by Andrea Beaty
Comment on this lesson.