Students will create a water bottle sieve using soil that they have brought from home to find out which soil retains water the best.
Students will work in groups to create a Keva Plank bridge that spans an 8.5 inch “river” (sheet of paper). The bridge needs to span the river (touch in the middle) and can have no blocks touching any water. Students will record data on how many blocks they plan to use + how many they actually use in their attempts, as well as the most and least used in the class. Students will also reflect on group designs as well as how to improve their own work.
Students will build a balloon powered car.
After reading the book, If I Built A Car, by Chris Van Dusen, https://youtu.be/t-uX-5DyULA students will build a balloon powered car. We will test each car to see which car travels the farthest,
This is an engineering design brief SAMPLE that can be used to help guide how to utilize the template correctly.
Students will be asked to build a bridge that spans a “river” (a sheet of paper), with common building materials. The bridge needs to span the river without touching the “water”. It only needs to join together in the middle- it does not need to hold any weight (unless you decide to make the challenge more difficult).
Students will be asked to build a functional pencil box- one that can hold at least 4 pencils, with a lid that closes- that will also hold all pencils in when turned upside down. Students will work in groups of 2-4 and will test their pencil box at the end of the activity.
In this lesson, students will build a wall for Humpty Dumpty (a plastic egg) to sit upon- with the goal of building the TALLEST, SAFEST wall possible in a limited amount of time. Students will not only need to collaborate well in their design but also utilize good teamwork as they build quickly due to the time constraint. Humpty must stay safe at the top of the wall when time is called.
Sam the worm was out sailing and his boat capsized! Students will be given a gummy worm (Sam), a gummy life saver (the life preserver), a cup, and paper clips. Their task is to get Sam into his life preserver and back into his boat prior to time expiring.- all while using just one paper clip for each group member and not letting Sam fall into the water (ie, they can’t drop Sam). Also, Sam’s boat (the cup) must be flipped back over so he can be safe inside once more.
In this lesson, students will build as tall of a tower as possible using just 20 strands of spaghetti and marshmallows. The tower must be able to stand freely without any assistance at the end of the creation phase.
Students will be tasked with building a structure that can hold as many books as possible, at least 4 inches off of the desk/table. After planning and creation, groups will be able to add as many books as possible until their structure finally collapses.
Students will design a pencil box utilizing popsicle sticks, painters tape, and cardboard. After designing, they will test it’s functionality with pencils and then measure the volume inside their box with unit cubes.
This is our planning document, with goals and timelines for the 23-24 school year.
This is an ongoing collection of potential grants that NC STEM Teachers can consider applying for in order to obtain materials and resources for their STEM labs.
This is the link to send to other STEM Teachers so they can join the collaborative!
This is a document created by active NC STEM Teachers- to help describe some best practices/job description of what an elementary STEM Teacher should be doing within their schools.
This is an ongoing list of potential materials and resources to consider as part of a K-5 STEM lab.