'The Longest Paper Chain'- Collaborative Activity

We spent this morning talking about collaboration and engaging in a collaborative task. To get things started, we brainstormed ideas about what COLLABORATION means to us. We created a 'Y Chart' about what we think collaboration is...what it LOOKS LIKE, SOUNDS LIKE and FEELS LIKE. The students had many good ideas to share about collaboration and this is what our 'Y Chart' looked like before our collaborative activity:

Next, the students were split into small groups and presented with the challenge of creating the longest paper chain possible with only 1 piece of g.o.o.s. paper, tape and scissors. The activity required them to work collaboratively with their peers by problem solving, devising a plan of action, listening to each other's ideas, etc.,  Here they are working away:

After about 30 minutes working on their challenge, these were their final products:

Our longest chain was 195 cm, second longest was 180 cm, third longest was 142 cm, fourth longest was 77 cm and our fifth longest was 75 cm. During our activity consolidation we discussed what we learned about collaboration and what we needed in order to be successful at the challenge. We talked about errors we made and the things we would do differently if we were to repeat the challenge. 

Here are some of the ideas they came up with:

We also added to our 'Collaboration Y Chart:' 

Finally, we decided it would be fun to connect all the chains together in order to to make one huge paper chain! The students were amazed to see their enormous paper chain laid out down the hallway. They were even more amazed to learn that at the 1968 Summer Olympics, American Long Jumper Bob Beamon, won the Gold Medal with a record breaking 890 cm jump- way LONGER than our 743 cm paper chain! Our final measurement of 743 cm will lead to tomorrow's brain teaser: Why do our measurements of the individual paper chains add up to 669 cm rather than 743 cm?