STEM Challenge for Summer with Buoyancy - Design a Submersible

STEM Challenge for Summer: Design a Submersible!

This is one of the more challenge STEM activities I have done with kids over the years! It's also perfect for summer because you will get wet!

Warning: You WILL Get Wet with this STEM Challenge

Why try this challenge? I can't even tell you how many boat challenges I have done with kids, asking for a simple craft that floats, something that can be propelled with wind (sailboat), and so on.

You have probably also done "Does it sink or float?" activities with your students over the years.

This challenge is a combination of all those!

What if we want an object to not sink,

but to float,

but not at the surface and rather about halfway between the bottom of a body of water and the top?

Gather Materials for Submersible STEM

First, gather all materials needed for the challenge:

For the water:

You will need a tub, storage bin, kiddie pool, etc. for this challenge. You will also need to fill the bin with water.

Students can create their submersibles with aluminum foil, popsicle sticks, plastic egg carton pieces, balloons, rubber bands, recyclables, pennies or small weights, etc.

Your students can start in one of two ways:

• With an object that floats, that they will need to make LESS buoyant.
  
• With an object that sinks, that they will need to make MORE buoyant.
  

Go Deeper with Science in this STEM Challenge

Have your students research density and buoyancy. Ask:

How does the density of an object affect its buoyancy?

When might you want a water vessel to NOT be completely buoyant?

What skills do students work on? In addition to following the Engineering Design Process to complete this challenge, students will need to work together and may need to make several modifications to improve their sail designs.

Add more rigor into this activity and download printables for students to use with the STEM challenge resource (or get the pack of Summer STEM challenges) on Teachers pay Teachers (also includes sand castle STEM and a squirrel proof bird feeder):

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Winter STEM Challenge with Frosty the Snowman

STEM Activities for Frosty the Snowman 

STEM That is Easy to Implement

This story is one of my favorites of the "Pick Your Path STEMventure" series. This story is about beloved Frosty, and helping to make his day the BEST.DAY.EVER. Students decide how they want the story to progress; in completing the story students will complete 3-4 challenges. The story not only guides students through the engineering design process, it includes design constraints and areas for them to fill in their thoughts, plans, and testing data. However, you don't need the resource in order to do just the building parts. Read on to find some fun and creative STEM activities you can do to make Frosty the snowman have a great day!

If you do use the resource I created, students will read through a story about Frosty, and then choose where they would like him to go. Depending on their choice, they will encounter different STEM challenges along the way.

Sled STEM Challenge 

Sleds are an excellent tool to teach students about force and motion, potential and kinetic energy, and friction. Can your students design and create a sled that Frosty can fit in and use? You could use a mini figure or paper Frosty as shown:

Race sleds down a cardboard box on a slope, or use a large sheet of plastic cardboard (find at your local hardware store). It makes a great snow hill! Try different materials to see which ones travel best downhill. Shown are legos, and a section of plastic egg carton covered with vinyl tablecloth.

An Unlikely Winter STEM Challenge - Hammock

Why would Frosty need a hammock? Well, you'd have to read the story to find out. This is a simple challenge that kids always love. Who doesn't love relaxing in a hammock?

Do you want to build a snow-less snowman?

There are several other challenges you can do with a snowman, including building one (use baking soda to make inexpensive fake snow). Students can challenge themselves to build a regular snowman and one that is upside down, as well! For older students, have them hypothesize the correct ratio of baking soda to water to make "snow" that sticks together and holds a shape. They can then test it out and create a recipe, then build their snowmen.

Find this STEM Resource on Teachers pay Teachers

If you would like to use the story and printables I've created, you can find them on Teachers pay Teachers at this link, Snowman STEMventure:

or save these ideas for later by pinning this on Pinterest:

5 Awesome End of Year STEM Challenges

STEM Activities for the End of the School Year

You have made it far enough to start thinking about an end-of-year STEM challenge! Hopefully standardized testing is in your past and you are ready to tackle some classic (and new) challenges!

Please note: the article can be found here.

Garden Planter STEM Challenge for Spring

STEM Challenge for Spring: Garden Planter Box

A math-intensive STEM challenge that can be useful when planning out a school or home garden.

Practical Skills with STEM

Why try this challenge? In addition to creating something that is useful, students will be honing their spacial reasoning and mathematics skills while designing and creating their garden box. It may even inspire your students to create a full sized garden bed where they can plant their favorite flowers, plants, or vegetables.

Gather Materials for Garden Planter STEM

First, gather all materials needed for the challenge:

You can use items like card stock, paper, and tape, or have students use building bricks or blocks. If you want to have them make a scale model, set a scale for them that make sense based on the materials you have. You can even procure seed packets or find directions online for the appropriate spacing of their seedlings and how many they can fit in their box.

Go Deeper with Math in this STEM Challenge

Have your students explore using a fixed set of materials. Is there an optimal configuration to support the number of seedlings and garden planter box size? Are there configurations that would make more sense in real life? A square is the most efficient area you can get with a fixed perimeter, but would that make it difficult to rid the garden box of weeds or harvest vegetables? These are all considerations your students can think about.

What skills do students work on? In addition to following the Engineering Design Process to complete this challenge, they will see that math is important and helpful outside the classroom, as well as work together with patience and perseverance.

Add more rigor into this activity with the STEM challenge resource (or get the pack of Spring STEM challenges) on Teachers pay Teachers:

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Bird Nest STEM Challenge

STEM Challenge for Spring: Design and Create a Bird's Nest

A nature-based STEM challenge that is fun to create on both a small and large scale: a bird's nest!

Support a Growth Mindset with STEM

Why try this challenge? In addition to creating something that seems simple (but is actually quite difficult), students have the opportunity to observe nests in nature, gather materials, and work on their growth mindset.

Gather Materials for Bird Nest STEM

First, gather all materials needed for the challenge:

This project can be done in two ways - with materials found in your recycle bin or objects found in nature. If you live in an urban area, students may observe that birds often use trash that has been discarded when making their nests. Use paper scraps or go to nature to find grass, twigs, etc. Ask:

What objects do you routinely discard that could be reused or repurposed?

Test the nest with hardboiled, wooden, or plastic eggs filled with pennies (for weight). Can it support the weight of the egg?

What skills do students work on? In addition to following the Engineering Design Process to complete this challenge, they will need to test stability and strength as well as work together with patience and perseverance.

Add more rigor into this activity with the STEM challenge resource (or get the pack of Spring STEM challenges) on Teachers pay Teachers:

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Valentine's Day STEM Adventure with Cupid

Fun STEM Activities for Elementary Students on Valentine's Day

Candy Heart STEM That is Easy to Implement

This is the third installment of the "Pick the Path STEMventure" series. I wrote a short story about Cupid for Valentine's Day. Don't worry, there's no lovey-dovey stuff. In the story, Cupid is helping kids and animals work through some quarrels. Each choice leads to a STEM challenge, so that in completing the story students will complete 3-4 challenges. The story not only guides them through the engineering design process, it includes design constraints and areas for them to fill in their thoughts, plans, and testing data.

One Challenge All Students Complete - Unplugged Coding

Not all kids love coding, but it is still great to expose them to simple logic problems that are the basis of coding. Creating a path is a simple way to have kids think ahead and plan out a set of directions - this can be useful in many other non-coding areas, such as cooking, following a map, or even executing a detailed set of drills at soccer practice! The story is set up in such a way that all students will walk through this particular challenge, though the other challenges presented are up to the student. The other challenges include:

• a candy heart tower
• a candy heart maze
• a container that holds candy hearts
• a parachute for Cupid
• a bow for Cupid (optional, for any class that has a serious case of shoot-your-eye-out-itis)

You can do the challenges above (aside from the coding one) without the resource I created. Here are some examples of the others, including STEM activities with conversation hearts:

Other ideas for Candy Heart STEM

• Create a pattern with the hearts and have someone else decipher it. Is it by color? By saying? Something else?
• Create a candy heart launcher! 
• Set up an experiment to try and figure out the fastest way to dissolve candy hearts. Is it with cold water? Warm water? Water with baking soda in it? Milk (if no allergies)? Something else? Get ideas from students and see if they have any creative solutions to try!

Find this STEM Resource on Teachers pay Teachers

If you would like to use the story and printables I've created, you can find them on Teachers pay Teachers at this link Valentine's Day STEM:

or save these ideas for later by pinning this on Pinterest:

Popsicle Stick STEM Challenges - Fun Craft Stick Activities for Kids

Craft Stick STEM Challenges Your Kids will Love

Whether you call them popsicle sticks, craft sticks, tongue depressors, or paddlepop sticks, you are probably familiar with a number of ways to use this versatile material.
 

Get Started with Popsicle Stick STEM

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You can use standard popsicle sticks, but I find them much more challenging to work with than large, 6" x 3/4" sticks. Make sure you sort through them and remove any that are broken, split, or have splintering edges. If you are looking for jumbo colorful ones like the ones above, I got mine here.

Create a Popsicle Stick Bridge

A really easy challenge to get started with is to create a popsicle stick bridge. Use binder clips to hold the sticks together and make it easily reconfigurable. You can create a simple ladder style design or try something a little more funky. Get creative and see what works! For older kids, you can use hot glue to create some really intricate and large bridges with a long span.

Make it easier for little ones:Binder clips can be hard to work for small fingers. Attach Velcro/hook & loop stickers to the ends of craft sticks for easy building. In addition to bridges, they can use the sticks to create 2D shapes and even letters.

Create a Stick Bomb Chain Reaction 

This one will entice even reluctant kids to get in on the STEM action! Use a weaving technique to apply tension to the sticks. You can work with a variety of patterns, from simple to the more complex. For very simple designs, visit this YouTube channel
as he has some great tutorials (tip - watch at .75 speed because he talks really quickly!). Or you can try to create a pattern like the one below - just search "stick bomb" on YouTube and you'll find a variety of videos explaining how to weave it. I recommend working on a carpet if possible because it's easier to slide the sticks into place.

Popsicle Stick Marble Maze STEM

This one is a bit tricky but SO much fun! Create a marble maze in a box. If you are working with your own kid(s), you can use a box cutter to poke the sticks through the cardboard to secure them. Otherwise, duct tape works well. Pro tip: tilt the box back slightly to help keep the marble from falling out, or construct "channels" by making an L-shape with two sticks.

See a few popsicle stick STEM ideas in action

 

Other Craft Stick STEM Ideas

Craft Stick Art or Bow and Arrow

If you want to get really creative, you can soak them in water for a few hours or overnight, and then bend to the desired shape. This is a lot of fun, but takes some careful planning ahead. You'll need to then clamp the sticks in place somehow until they dry. There are some amazing designs you can create!

Craft Stick Harmonica or Kazoo

Use craft sticks in your STEM station!

Craft stick shapes match up game

Try These STEM Challenges with the Engineering Design Process

If you want to add more rigor to these challenges by following the engineering design process, please visit the resource I put together. It includes the 3 challenges above plus two more. With this  guided STEM resource, students need to meet the design criteria specified to complete the challenge. It's even easy enough to leave with a sub!

You can find Craft Stick STEM Challenges here:

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Little Red Riding Hood STEM Activity with Integrated Literacy

Fairy Tale STEM Activity for Little Red Riding Hood

Little Red Riding Hood is on her way to visit her sick grandmother, but the wolf beats her to Grandmother's house. Can you help stop the wolf before he eats Grandmother? This is a great STEM activity to try for National Fairy Tale day!

Materials Needed for this STEM Fairy Tale Activity

• Supplies to create two different musical instruments (metal like washers and bolts, etc., rubber bands, recyclables cups and containers, balloons or plastic bags to create drums, craft sticks and rubber bands to create kazoos, etc.

Before Getting Started with the STEM Tale

STEM tales work best if you read the original fairy tale first or do your own storytelling. Discuss the similarities and differences as you read through the story. For this STEM tale, you will start with an exploration of Morse code!

After getting acquainted with Morse code, students will then create two instruments that make distinctly different sounds, to represent the short and long parts of the code.

Fairy Tale STEM with the Engineering Design Process 

I have designed STEM tales so that as students read the story, they will follow the engineering design process. What is the problem that needs to be solved in the Little Red Riding Hood STEM Tale? Grandmother can't call for help because she lost her voice with her illness. She did, however, learn Morse code with Little Red Riding Hood so the instruments will help save Grandmother!

Design a Musical Instrument or Sound Device

After brainstorming instrument design ideas, the students will then choose two to create. They will need to test out their instruments with a partner and decode the message! This can also be done digitally if desired:

You can have students create a Scratch program to send the message. Otherwise, stick with simple instruments like the ones shown below:

STEM tales are a great way to foster teamwork and problem-solving. To find the full resource, which includes an 8-page booklet, check list for self-evaluation, and tips, visit Little Red Riding Hood STEM:

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To read more about how to conduct a STEM challenge, visit this post:

To see all posts in this series, click here: