Physics Holiday House
Lesson Plan by Julia Stevens
Adapted from “Gingerbread House Design Competition”
By Melissa Brechner, GK-12 Fellow, Cornell University
Overview
This fun and exciting activity requires students to build problem solving skills,
design brainstorming, and teamwork. In groups of four, students work to design and
build a gingerbread house to certain criteria. The criteria we chose were as follows:
tallest house in the neighborhood, strength against wind, strength against a 10 second
“earthquake” (slamming a book against the table), closeness to original design, and
creativity. This activity promotes creative thinking and teamwork in order to fix design
flaws in the original plans.
Objectives
 Students learn basic inquiry skills, as they are required to design a plan of how to
accomplish the set goals.
 Students learn the basic steps in taking an idea from design to completion.
 Students learn how to use the given “equipment” (or candy and icing) to increase
the strength of the house.
 Students learn how basic physics concepts are used in the real world of building
design.
Materials
 One brick of graham crackers. We used the cinnamon type as they are stronger
than original. Remember to explain to students if they have broken crackers in
their package they have to come up with a way to integrate that into their design.
 Pint-sized plastic bag filled with icing (recipe below)
 Wax paper for a building surface
 Candy: Pull and Peel Twizzlers worked great for the students to reinforce their
walls, marshmallows were used to stick the crackers together while the icing
dried, gumdrops and peppermints were also used in the construction. (This is a
step where a lot of creativity can be used)
Procedure
1. Handout worksheet where the students are instructed to design a house to certain
specification (see below).
2. Give students 10 minutes to complete design (stress to the students this is an
important step)
3. Handout supplies once the design has been approved.
4. We gave the students 25 minutes to complete construction (this can change
depending on length of your class).
5. When construction was complete we performed evaluations to see if the houses
withstood wind and earthquake effects and awarded prizes.
Tips
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Encourage students to follow their plan. This is a major issue in real-world
design, and if something needs to be re-designed make them have an explanation
of why.
If you decide to test the strength of the house (i.e. how much weight it can hold),
give the icing over night to dry.
This lesson gets messy so leave enough time for clean-up. By the end of the day
my clothes were covered in powdered sugar.
Emphasize teamwork! This activity can get very frustrating for the students when
their original designs fail.
The students got loud and a little wild in my classes, so be prepared to call time
up with a rather loud device. We used a computerized timer that had a loud chime
at the end.
Icing Recipe
3 cups Confectioners Sugar
3 tbsp Liquid egg whites
1 tsp Cream of Tarter powder
3 tbsp water
Whip icing with electric mixer until ingredients liquefy. Immediately put icing into
plastic baggies because this is quick hardening icing.
House Design Competition
Rules: Your team has 10 minutes to design a house to Ms. Stevens’
and Mrs. Stone’s specifications. Your design MUST have an
approved stamp before construction starts (or your team will be
disqualified!!!).
Once your design is approved, you will have 25 minutes for
construction. The houses will have 20 minutes to dry before judging.
At the end of class your house will be judged on the following criteria:
1. tallest house in the neighborhood, 2. strength against wind, 3.
strength against a 10 second earthquake, 4. closeness to original
design and 5. creativity!
Design: