I. Point of Balance Challenge!

Balance six, 16 lb. nails on the top of the standing nail. (Standing nail is partially nailed into a small mounting board.) Figure out a way to balance all 6 nails on the head of the mounted nail. No nails (other than the one nailed to the board) can touch the wooden mounting board. This is a challenge of Perseverance.

View the solution to the challenge (only after you've tried it yourself!).

Target Thinking Dispositions & Intelligences :

• The disposition to Think Broadly & Adventurously
• The disposition to be Metacognitive
• The disposition to be Intellectually Careful

• Visual-Spatial intelligence
• Math-logic intelligence

II. Set-Up

Materials: seven, 16 lb. nails; one wooden cutting board, hammer

1. Partially nail one of the nails into the cutting board. Deep enough so that it stands securely.
2. Write the challenge directly on the cutting board with a marker
3. Find storage container for remaining nails

Some lab cautions:

• Supervise younger students directly.
• Don't allow students to walk around with the project; it should stay in one place.
• Project shouldn't be done on the floor.

One student's initial reaction to the activity: "That's Impossible!"

Jean's response:
"This is one of the toughest projects in the lab, but it can be done. I know you can do this challenge! Think about how you might use Adventure Gears to help you think about new ways to look at approaching the problem. What has to happen in order for all the nails to be balanced on the head of the other nail? What might it look like to have 6 nails balanced on one?"

III. Teacher Tip

Lead the student toward the solution by scaffolding the student's thinking with questions and feedback at the right moments. This way, once the "light bulb" has gone on, and a challenge has been met, the understanding and reward belongs to the student! "That's impossible," becomes, "I did it!"

Questions and feedback should be structured so that the students arrive at the solution or insight themselves. Allow lots of think time. Students need to make the connection that good thinking leads to good solutions and that it wasn't luck.

A well-designed project stimulates the use of thinking dispositions and provides rich opportunities to develop dialog about dispositions with students. Talking about thinking brings thinking up front and introduces students to a "language of thinking" that they begin to adopt on their own.

Here are some sample "light bulb" questions used to guide the challenge process, cultivate thinking dispositions, and generate dialog for this activity:

• What could the head of the nail be used for other then what it is designed for?

• Can you draw some ideas on paper of how you might assemble the nails?

• Can you think of a system that might somehow lock the nails together?

• How could you cradle a nail?

• What could you do with an X or two?

• What about this problem makes it puzzling for you? Explain.

• What kinds of solutions definitely won't work? List them.

• What kinds of assumptions are you making about this problem? Do any of them need to be challenged?

IV. What The Students Had To Say…Some Sample Responses

When Jean asked, "What do you do when things get tough? What are some Action Steps?"

Students replied…

• Say you're in a tangle of knots. You try another start and see what happens.

• I stop and review what I've been doing.

• Ask for clues. Take a break. Make a plan. Go to scratch paper.

• See what other people might do or think.

• I remember what I really want to do, and start again.

When Jean asked, "What were the steps your thinking took with the nail challenge today?"

A 3rd Grader replied…
"I tried to balance them and then said, hmmm, is there something we can do by making X's (crosses)? But then they fell again. But I noticed there was one more nail, hmmm, has to be something we can do with the X and this extra nail. It needs a little something to have it stay up." [This student soon discovered that the "something" was another nail!]

© Jean Sausele Knodt, Kent Gardens Elementary School, Fairfax County Public Schools, Area III Administrative District, 1998.

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