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YLT-The Marshmallow Challenge

In teams of four, build the tallest freestanding structure you can using only twenty sticks of spaghetti, one yard of masking tape and one yard of string. Your tower must be topped by a marshmallow. Your team has 18 minutes to build its tower.

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Plan

  • What strategy will you use to build your tower?  
  • What roles will your team have (if any)?  
  • What experiences can you draw upon that might help your team with this challenge?  
  • How can you make the best possible use of the 18 minutes you have to work with? 

Do

Build the tallest spaghetti tower you can manage! 

Review

  • What do you know now that you did not know before?  
  • What strategy was most effective?  
  • What strategy was least effective? Why was this?  
  • What roles did people take on to form a successful team?  
  • If you were to try this challenge again, what would you do differently? 

Keep it Simple

If this challenge is too difficult, you can let teams earn more supplies. They might perform a short skit or sing a silly song in order to earn more supplies! 

Take it Further

Make this activity more difficult by adding challenges to it! Maybe one team member can’t talk, only gesture, or maybe one team member has to participate with their eyes closed.