Lesson Plan: The Marshmallow Challenge (STEM Education)

The Marshmallow Challenge is an engineering challenge that can be used in any content area or situation.  In this challenge students will work in groups of four to collaborate and build the tallest free standing tower out of 30 strands of uncooked spaghetti, a meter of string, arms length of tape, and a marshmallow that must be mounted on the top of the structure.  Students have 20 minutes to finish this challenge.  In this lesson students will use the Engineering Design Process to ask, imagine, plan, create, and improve their design. This lesson can be used as a get-to-know you activity, collaborative team building, engineering lesson, or lesson with Math connections. Students are assessed on how successfully they complete the challenge.

Author: Michelle Woods

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