Can you balance a book using only one piece of paper?

"If I trap the air in here, it will hold the book up."

Through this learning experience, students were challenged to use innovative ways to make a typically weak material paper (a piece of paper) strong.


Students were guided with the following questions:

• How can you manipulate the material to create a sturdy structure?

• What method can you use to make it stronger?

• How can your knowledge of 3-D shapes help your structure?

• What 3-D shapes can be used to improve your structure?
  

"I'm making something that will hold it like a building...This is a wall...I want to make four of these things fat for the edges...This is VERY frustrating!"

"I'm making it kind of like a shape, so it can balance. I put this, it is something so it can stand."

"We can make an airplane...The book can stand on the plane...If I fold it like a pocket, maybe it will stand."