Gather materials about the construction of infamous skyscrapers such as the Empire State Building in New York, New York and the Burj in Dubai. Using various household materials, groups of students construct a skyscraper from the materials the team believes are the most stable against natural environmental forces such as wind and rain. Materials may include newspaper, drinking straws, toothpicks, tape, twigs and glue. Test each structure's strength with an indoor fan and a light sprinkle of water.
Bridges allow travelers to cross various natural landforms and bodies of water. With your students, study the three main types of bridges: Beam, truss and arch. Each group of students chooses one type of bridge it believes can withstand an undetermined amount of weight in pennies. Teams can construct the bridges from wooden skewers or wooden craft sticks and glue or tape. When complete, set the bridges between two classroom desks and place pennies in the centers to test the durability. Pile pennies on until the bridges begin to deteriorate. The group's bridge holding the largest number of pennies is the winner.
Students use learned concepts of force, gravity, angles, friction, height and energy in mathematics and physics to construct a roller coaster from foam pipe insulation and a marble. Hold a contest among the class projects for the most inventive and successful coasters driven by gravity only. Each group of students arranges the foam tubing, cut in half, on a table with removable masking tape. Let them arrange various levels of heights with classroom furniture or drinking straw structures. When they finish construction and testing their marble roller coasters, have students create artistic signs with made-up names for their creations to present to the class during competition.
Students, using only rolled-up newspaper tubes and masking tape, construct a three-dimensional geometric structure in this exercise. Students measure the lengths of newspaper rolls and tape them together, creating equilateral triangles. They can add more newspaper rolls to the existing triangles, eventually constructing a geodesic structure similar to a dome-shaped playground climbing structure. Cover each triangular opening with a colored or painted piece of newspaper or poster board. The activity strengthens knowledge of mathematical concepts while engaging in a cooperative project.