Marble Falls – Bay Area Discovery Museum

Marble Falls

Work as a team to move a marble from Point A to Point B, allowing the marble to only touch PVC piping. This group activity helps children practice problem solving and collaboration skills.

Materials Required

  • A marble
  • PVC pipes

Instructions

  1. Choose an activity leader. The leader passes out pieces of PVC pipe to each player.
  2. Decide on a starting point (Point A) and a finishing point (Point B). Move the marble from Point A to Point B using only the pieces of pipe.

Rules:

  • Work together to move the marble from Point A to Point B.
  • Every piece of PVC pipe must be used.
  • Each team member has to be involved in some way.
  • The marble can never touch the ground. If it does, start again at point A.

Additional Tips

Try these add-on activities:

  • After completing the activity successfully, take away a few pieces of PVC pipe and try the activity again.
  • Choose a longer distance to move the marble.

Links to Creativity

This activity cannot be done alone, children will need to work together. Collaboration with other people is a creative act itself, and how we work with others can be just as important as how we work with our materials. Sometimes, when we think we have a great idea or solution, we may not realize that collaboration can be a more powerful contribution to creativity than competing against someone else’s idea simply because it is not our own.

Supporting research includes:

Glăveanu, V. P. (2011). How are we creative together? Comparing sociocognitive and sociocultural     answers. Theory & Psychology21(4), 473-492.

Gordon, W. J. (1961). Synectics: The development of creative capacity. Oxford, UK: Harper.

Contributor

This activity was contributed by the Center for Childhood Creativity at the Bay Area Discovery Museum. ©2015 Bay Area Discovery Museum. It was inspired by an activity used by The Outdoor School at Camp Champions. For more information and resources see CenterforChildhoodCreativity.org, CampChampions.com, and ACACamps.org.

Marble Falls

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