Thursday, December 22, 2016

Mystery Box Challenge

Everyone loves a good challenge, especially the day before Christmas break! Here is the overview of Mystery Box Challenge: Holiday Edition:


  • 8 groups 
  • 4 different Mystery Boxes
  • Each group was competing against one other group.
  • The challenge had to be completed using a minimum of 4 supplies from the Mystery Box.


Each Mystery Box contained random supplies such as spoons, cups, plastic wrap, bottle lids, yarn, etc. Really, I just took the contents of my junk drawer and any leftover project supplies and threw them into random buckets. No two Mystery Boxes were the same.

Students had 15 minutes to complete the challenge and take a group selfie with their creation.  Then they came up to test it out.  Most had no idea they were applying science principals to their creation but it was fun to listen to them discuss if weight made things faster, if the surface area was smooth or rough, and how sound could be echoed through a cup.