Class 3-4 Marshmallow Challenge

Class 3-4 Tuesday afternoon STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics) challenge. The task is simple: in forty minutes, teams must build the tallest free-standing structure out of 20 sticks of spaghetti, one metre of tape, one metre of string, and one marshmallow. The marshmallow needs to be balanced on top of the structure at the end of the activity and the structure must hold the marshmallow. The team with the highest-free standing structure able to hold a marshmallow is the winner. Everyone gets a marshmallow anyway, but the winners get an extra one. Class 3-4 prepared, measured and organised their materials themselves. They then chose their own groups, based on who they genuinely thought they could do their best work with. As the activity began, lots of discussions on how the structure should look, especially the foundation could be heard in the classroom. The groups worked iteratively to find the best design. Traditionally, young learners do better with this challenge than adults, as young learners use the process of iteration to fine tune their designs, while adults can get stuck in the mindset of forcing their design idea to succeed. The children used excellent communication skills to collaborate and put their skills to good usage. These types of activities are well known for engaging children with 21^st Century skills of cooperation, communication, and critical thinking.