Today I invited a class up to the MakerSpace for an activity they were doing known as the “Spaghetti Challenge”. The kids were given marshmallows and spaghetti with ten minutes to build a tower. The aim (as far as they were concerned) was to build the highest tower possible. Because they were rushed and didn’t plan, most of their towers toppled over. The point being that if you fail to plan, you should plan to fail. In the end, just about all of their designs flopped over.
I wish that we had spent more time on the reflection aspect of the lesson though. It seems like it’s often overlooked, but without it, deep thinking doesn’t always take place and a fun activity like this can come across as simply just that: fun on a surface level.
