Structures Unit: Eggxellent Eggxperiment!

I have been teaching a unit on strong and stable structures with my grade 3's for the last few weeks.  We began to talk about stable bases, triangulation, and compression and tension.

What better way to test out some of our theories than to conduct an engaging experiment that literally had students at the edge of their seats! Not to mention myself and my associate teacher!

We began by watching a short Bill Nye episode on compression and tension.  During the video some of his assistants conducted this egg experiment and my students were amazed, but thought it was all part of the magic of TV.

We decided to try out the experiment for ourselves!  We started by putting 3 eggs each into a water bottle cap, then adding a water bottle cap on top.  We arranged them into a triangular base.  I called up 3 students to bring their math textbooks and we voted at which point the eggs would break.  Most students voted that the eggs would break after 3 textbooks (and I agreed).  We soon realized that our hypotheses were wrong as we had ran out of student textbooks (20) and the eggs were still holding strong.  Students could not believe their eyes.  We then searched for dictionaries, thesauruses, and any large books in the class.  One by one, we continued the experiment.

44 textbooks later, our giant tower fell over, causing the back two eggs to break.  What a fantastic and engaging experiment.  I believed it would be a quick 10 minute thing, but it turned into 30 minutes of excitement and authentic learning.  Well worth putting other things on hold.  I could not have planned a better learning experience for my students.

We will be writing about the experiment after the weekend to consolidate our learning.  If you are teaching a unit on structures... this needs to be tried!