I am working on ways to help my classes communicate better and work together, and what a better way to do that then with a stem challenge? I know, that building a tea crate to keep a tea bag dry is tangentially related to our study of the Boston Tea Party, but when they leave my class I want my students to be confident and comfortable collaborating and conversing with one another. Teams worked together to keep the tea dry in Boston Harbor- it took 10 minutes of our time and was worth every second of relationship-building, fun, and the quiet buzz that grew into loud, problem-solving conversations.

Here are the instructions:

Materials (per group): 10 popsicle sticks, tape, 5 rubber bands, tea bag, 5 straws, 1 ruler to measure You can get creative here! These are the materials I used, but if you find something else, go for it!

Materials (teacher): Container with water, timer

Instructions: Explain to each group that they are trying to build a tea crate that will keep the tea dry in Boston Harbor. They have 10-15 minutes (depending on your class time) to design and build their crate. They can only use the materials provided and their crate must keep the teabag dry for 30 seconds. The container can be no larger than 5″x5″. The final requirement is that everyone must contribute to the project. Before floating their tea crate, have each student tell you their contribution and/or one idea that they told the rest of the group. If everyone doesn’t contribute, their crate doesn’t float!

The learning objective is simple: work together. They students know what the Tea Party was, but I noticed that during group work that involved reading documents or doing more traditional academic work was difficult for them. This simple, low-stakes competitive challenge helped them open up and my plan is to do more activities like this to encourage collaboration.