Crystalline Hors d'Oeuvres

This is a laboratory activity to be used in the high school Materials Science and Technologies (MST) classroom. The objective of the lab is to develop macroscopic models for several types of crystal lattices. The students individually construct a unit cell out of toothpicks and candies and then join the cells with those of the other students. Upon completion, three macroscopic crystal lattices will have been created.