Boat STEM Activity Challenge Buoyancy and Density Explorers

The BEST STEM Challenge ever? It's definitely one of my top picks! This STEM activity is all about boats. If you are studying buoyancy, density, or Great Explorers, this is the perfect complementary activity for you!

✨ About This Challenge ✨

This STEM activity provides a great introduction to the Engineering Design Process. While learning about density, buoyancy, and the Archimedes' principle, your students will construct their own cargo ship and see how much mass they can support. The warm up science experiment provides a hands-on exploration of density. After completing the challenge, there are differentiated math extension activities.

✅ What You'll Get ✅

For the teacher (6 pages):

• Designing a Cargo Ship: Overview (2 pages)
• Planning time line
• Introduction to Engineering for Students
• Design Criteria page
• Performance rubric

For the students (20+ pages):

• Introduction to Density, Buoyancy, and Archimedes' Principle
• Warm-up activities (3 pages, includes differentiated pages)
• Testing data sheet
• Design a Cargo Ship book (10 page book, or 2 page paper-saving option)
• Follow-up activities (5 pages, metric and imperial, 2 levels)
• Certificates of Completion, color and black & white included
• Blank cover page to use for additional engineering challenges
• Answer Keys (2 pages)

✂️ Materials Needed ✂️

These challenges use common items you likely already have in your classroom or can easily obtain: aluminum foil, a mallet, cardboard, plastic wrap, water, a bin, masses (pennies work well), tape.

There are duplicate copies of a page to include spelling of favorite (favourite). This activity does not use length measurements so is suitable for both imperial and metric systems.

✏️ Teamwork and Cross Curricular Integration ✏️

This activity helps teachers integrate science into a number of social studies units, including Native Americans (canoes), Westward Migration (canal ships), or even as a fun add on when learning about the Mayflower. Students will use higher order thinking skills as they design and improve their boat. This STEM activity can be used as part of a STEAM program, GATE class, or as a stand-alone lesson. STEM activities are wonderful avenues to gain real world soft skills such as perseverance, leadership, and teamwork.

What Teachers Are Saying

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "Fun and challenging activity for my gifted class. Thank you!"

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "This is a wonderful STEM activity that gets students designing, building, testing, and reworking. And they love it! Easy to teach lots of concepts. Younger and older kids can do. A++"

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "Used this as a culminating activity when my fourth and fifth graders were wrapping up their study of European explorers. Really fun and engaging!"

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Disclaimer: I have done my best to keep these as safe as possible. However, please make sure that you do your own due diligence when performing any STEM challenge. Adult supervision is necessary. Please use care, caution, and your best judgement when performing any STEM challenge, engineering challenge, or science experiment. The seller disclaims all liability for any damage or injury which might arise from the use of any of these projects.