Marshmallow STEM Activity – Team Building Challenge
STEM is becoming a large part of every school’s curriculum and is being taught in every grade level. The Marshmallow STEM Activity is such a great STEM lesson! I think that STEM is not only an important building block for our students’ future, but it can be so fun! That is why I love introducing new STEM projects to my class.
Marshmallow Toothpick Towers is one of the best STEM activities that I have done with my class! I think that great projects are ones that challenge students to problem solve, use their critical thinking skills, and of course… involve food. This marshmallow project checks all three of those boxes! Plus it’s great for team building!
Setting up the Marshmallow STEM Activity
This project provides a lot of fun in exchange for very little prep. For this project I gave each student:
- toothpicks
- mini marshmallows
- an interactive science mini book
One of the great things about this STEM lesson is that it can also be used digitally with Google Slides. This makes for a fun distance learning science activity!
In their Marshmallow STEM Activity books, students worked through the scientific method. Using the materials on their desks, my students formed their hypothesis by estimating how tall their tower would be. From there they began to build their marshmallow toothpick tower.
Everyone’s tower was different in height and width and each student used their materials in their own way.
I loved getting to see how creative my class could be with just two materials!
As my students finished their marshmallow towers, they returned to their Marshmallow STEM activity book to write down their conclusions. Each student measured their tower, and we recorded the actual height in the ‘experiment data’ section. As a class we discussed how close our hypotheses were to our results.
Experiment Tip: Students can complete this project on their own or in small groups! This makes for the perfect team building activity too!
What the Experiment Taught
This marshmallow STEM activity is a great way to get some practice with the scientific method.
It always excites me when my students are able to explain their steps using the scientific method!
Since this is also a STEM project, students use analytical skills to build the tower. If your students work independently on this experiment, they get practice relying on their own critical thinking skills. Upon completing this experiment, my students were able to build their own tower and use the scientific method to express the steps they used.
You bet they got to eat those marshmallows after!
The scientific method booklet we used! However, Marshmallow STEM is also part of a large bundle of 7 Easy Science Experiments. This is perfect for teachers who are looking to easily squeeze in more science lessons to a busy schedule!
Every resource included in the 7 Easy Science Experiment Bundle, includes a paper and digital version for Google Slides.
You can read more about the 7 Easy Science Experiment Bundle & slime activity here too!
What are some of the STEM projects you use in your classroom? I would love to hear from you!