Newspaper Towers Test 4-H Tribal Mentoring Teamwork

By Dan Sweet, Cornell Cooperative Extension

Last week in the 4-H Tribal Mentoring program at Salmon River Middle School, mentors and mentees got a taste of civil engineering. The project was very straightforward: create the tallest freestanding tower out of newspaper and tape, which must stand for thirty seconds without assistance. Eager for the friendly challenge, the 4-H'ers split up into groups and began the planning process.

Once materials were handed out and each group had a set plan, the timer began. The 4-H'ers were given 15 minutes to build the tallest tower. Very shortly after constructing the towers, the participants were presented with their first barrier, the wind. Although groups were spread out in the cafeteria, the slightest movement would cause mini gusts of wind which was enough to topple the towers. In order to overcome this barrier, 4-H'ers developed new strategies to improve the structural integrity of the newspaper towers. The main strategy for each tower consisted of rolling the newspaper up into long tubes of various widths to tape together on top of each other, which brought forth the next barrier: buckling. Buckling is when a part of the structure fails or bends, which in this challenge, happened quite often. Certain groups combatted this by reinforcing the newspaper with more newspaper, or creating tighter, stronger tubes that would not buckle as easily. With time running low, the 4-H'ers experienced one final problem, which was resource management. Rather than reusing parts of the newspaper tower that had failed, some groups threw the pieces away. Other groups competing had used too much tape early on in the challenge, and ran out. As the time ran out, the groups were very excited for the results. At the end of the day, the tallest tower stood just shy of four feet tall, at 46 inches.

The newspaper tower was just one of the many things that mentees and mentors are able to participate in the 4-H Tribal Mentoring Program. Every week when students meet, there is ample time for 4-H'ers to complete their homework, read a book, or speak quietly amongst themselves. After homework is completed, a physical activity is provided; during the newspaper tower day, students were taken to the playground to play ball tag. Once the physical activity portion is completed, the 4-H'ers come inside and participate in the educational lessons/challenges. The 4-H Tribal Mentoring Program aims to provide a safe afterschool environment for children while providing fun and engaging activities.