Post-Visit Activity: Basic Marble Maze

STEM Activity | STEM Career Connection: Mathematician (angles and shapes)
Standards: 2019 MN Science 3.2.2

Use STEM and your powers of prediction to navigate a marble “running back” through the challenges of a well-placed defense!

Materials:

• Football Defender Cutouts

• Scissors

• Masking tape

• Pencil/marker

• A marble

• ~9” high-sided paper plates (or similar)

• 5 strips of construction paper (~1x5”) or maze template pieces

Predict:

How do football players use math to avoid defenders?

Plan: 

How could you use a plate and paper strips to make a maze for your “football player” marble to navigate?

Play:

• Experiment with rolling a marble around a plate. How do you change direction? What happens if you go faster or slower? 

• If using the maze template pieces or the player cutouts, color them with the colors of the opposing team. 

• Tape strips of construction paper (or maze template pieces) onto the plate to make arches under which the marble “player” will roll. 

• Decide which defenders you need to get past to score. Beat the defenders by rolling the “football player” marble under the arches.

Ponder:

• How is directing your marble through the maze similar to a player running through defenders? How is it different? 

• How does the speed of the marble affect the ability to change direction? 

• SEL Connection: What did you do when rolling your marble through the maze became frustrating? 

Extension:

• Create a larger class maze with found materials (ex. books, pool noodles), and navigate the maze by kicking or rolling a ball. 

• Complete the Engineered Maze activity.