Building geodesic domes

On Hallowe'en day, most of my grade sevens were involved with helping the kindergartens with their kinder-cooking in the junior high foods lab.  As a result, I only had 10 - 12 students in each of my science classes.  I wanted them to do something connected to our unit of study that would continue their learning, but I did not want to move on to the next concept without the entire class.  I also wanted the remaining students to have a little fun- it was Hallowe'en after all!

I decided to give them gummy candies and toothpicks to create their own geodesic domes.  We first talked about what a geodesic dome was and what made them so strong. We then looked at examples in "real life" and then got to work on building our own.  (After washing hands just in case they wanted to eat the joinery parts at the end of the lesson!) They had to apply their understanding to build the best triangle dome that they could.  We took pictures of our creations and then used the remaining class time to try and build other structures with the supplies.  A good way to spend what could have been a "wasted" or "free" period!