STEM Challenge Projects Desert Island Winter Pioneer 15 Science Activities

STEM activities are a great way to integrate math and science into meaningful, hands-on learning! This bundle includes 3 themed-packs, each with its own engaging storyline. Students will help a stranded sailor escape a desert island, a group of explorers stuck in the arctic, and a pioneer family brave the wild west. Each challenge solves a problem faced by the characters in the story. Exciting and fun!

Includes the following:

• The Great Desert Island STEM Challenge
• The Great Arctic Circle STEM Challenge
• The Great Pioneer Town STEM Challenge

These include a total of 15 different challenges:

• Water Filter
• Cabin Construction
• Tower Building
• Solar Water Heater
• Rock Mover (pulleys)
• Ice Shelter
• Floating Raft
• Waterproof Container
• Insulating Blanket
• Snowball Shooter
• Parachute Design
• Hut Building
• Bridge Building
• Coconut Catapult
• Tower Design

Each STEM challenge includes teacher instructions, student challenge sheet, planning and design pages, and scoring rubrics. There is a set of team member role cards, design process cards, a master score sheet to find out which group is the most successful at helping the explorers, and associated NGSS standards.

These STEM challenges use common materials that you probably already have in your classroom. They incorporate concepts of linear measurement, area, force and motion, energy, simple machines, data, and scientific process.

All 3 packs are provided in both standard and metric versions.

PLEASE NOTE: One of the diary entries in the pioneer challenge pack includes the term "Indians". The diary entries are meant to appear as something written during pioneer times by a child whose family was traveling through unfamiliar territory. The term "Native Americans" was not used at that time (nor was "First Nations" which is not a term generally used in the U.S. even today). This was not written with any racist ideas or intentions. I do not refer to our Native peoples as "Indians" nor do I think we should teach our students to. However, this provides an opportunity for discussion about our nation's past and our treatment of native tribes, allowing you to integrate social studies into this project.

Not sure where to start with STEM?

➡ How to Choose the Best STEM Challenges for Your Students

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FAQ

How long does each challenge take to complete?

This somewhat depends on the age of your students. I have found that the older students spend more time brainstorming and really planning their designs. They are also more careful when building and testing. Each challenge includes reading part of the storyline. This may take 5 minutes or 15, depending on if your students engage in conversation about it. Then students will need to brainstorm, plan, and collect their materials. The actual building and testing portion of the challenges usually takes about an hour. If you want your students to go back and make improvements to their designs, that will add more time. Overall, I would plan on using two class periods to complete each challenge from start to finish.

Why don't you list specific quantities for each material?

It is important to remember that STEM is a process that requires brainstorming, hypothesizing, planning, designing, and testing. If you tell students how much to use of certain items, they will use exactly that much. This completely defeats the purpose of STEM and turns it into doing a craft. We want students to think about what would work best to meet their goal. When you tell them exactly what to use and how much, you're doing the thinking for them. You can certainly limit how much students can take of each material. The challenges are very flexible. They include a list of suggested materials and note which ones are actually required. You can eliminate, limit, or add any other materials you like.

NOTE: This resource may NOT be used for commercial purposes such as Outschool.

You might also like:

• The Great Journey to Jupiter STEM Challenge
• The Great Roman Empire STEM Challenge
• STEM Supply Labels

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