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Hi! I am a preservice teacher placed in a 5th grade classroom. We will be designing a paper table to hold their science textbook. Does anyone have ideas or advice you would like to give me? (I am introducing the idea of truss). Thanks!

Hi Christa, I am also a pre-service teacher. This lesson sounds really engaging. Pedestals are great for these activities, too. How did the lesson go? Regards, Julie

Hello! We did a similar project for my science instruction class when we had an orientation for our internship at the Maryland Science Center. I would suggest following a similar format that we used. We were required to take straws and tape and create a structure that held a textbook at least and inch off of the table. We had to work together and communicate to finish this task in under 5 minutes. Your class could achieve the same goal through rolling up thick pieces of paper to make a structure that would work. I think that this is a good way to foster communication between students in an effective and educational way.

Hello! I would suggest to have the students formulate some questions, hypothesis, and experiment with different materials. It would be a great activity to have student brainstorm ideas and have their own thoughts in how make the textbook stand on bunch of papers. I also tried this out with my college class where we had to do a similar activity. It was a lot of fun and it was a great activity for engineering component.

It might be a good idea to introduce the students to a slight understanding of some geometric concepts. For instance, if they understand how triangles work, they might be able to better succeed at the project, while also introducing them to material that will help them when they start geometry in middle school.