Body System Amusement Parks

In the Body System Amusement Parks project, students team up to create amusement parks based on the various systems and organs within the human body. With the power of abstraction, each attraction represents the cardiovascular system, the muscular system, the digestive system, etc. Teams create both 3D scale models and presentations to an unnamed wealthy investment firm looking to build a new park in the students’ very own town. This activity was heavily inspired by a post from Danielle Dace.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: Eli Sheldon

Turkey Trap Ozobot Challenge

Students will create a route for their ozobot to travel using parallel, perpendicular and intersecting lines. They will also create a "trap" to catch the turkey on the route.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: Jamie Hitz

Literature Based STEM - Book List & Corresponding Activities

Literature Based STEM - Book List & Corresponding Activities: Looking for grab-and-go elementary STEM lessons? Looking for a read-aloud to hook an existing STEM lesson? Trying to build a STEM library? Search the spreadsheet by titles, authors, big ideas, themes, and lessons. Whether you are a STEM specialist or a classroom teacher, these lessons will work for you.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson, Lesson Plan, Reading

Authors: Sara Bowers, Jessica Redcay, janemarie mckay

Learning the 4Cs Through Literacy-Based STEM

In this unit, students will learn about the 4Cs (communication, collaboration, creation, and critical thinking) through literature-based engineering challenges. Each lesson focuses on one "C" and one read-aloud. This unit is geared for grades 2-3 but could be adapted to any elementary grade level. COMMUNICATION - Click Clack Moo COLLABORATION - Iggy Peck Architect CRITICAL THINKING - Rosie Revere Engineer CREATION - Galimoto

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson, Lesson Plan, Unit of Study

Author: Sara Bowers

Genetically Engineered Animals!

Ligers exist! But, why does a liger look like a mystical creature? Students will design a simulated genetically engineered animal for a biotechnology engineering firm, which creates newanimals.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Author: Sarah Cummings

Engineering Design Process Gingerbread Houses

Architecture is the practice of designing and building structures. Architecture can vary in its scope from functional bridges, houses and buildings to the aesthetic principles of landscape architecture. Architecture is a human endeavor that spans thousands of years. Students will be introduces to Engineering Design Process via the study of Architecture and building their own gingerbread house

Material Type: Unit of Study

Authors: Marsha Hughes, Ellie Taraborrelli

Bats

In this 7 day unit, students study bats and their important role in our ecosystem, research the need for conservation efforts, and design and build a bat house.

Material Type: Unit of Study

Authors: Nancy Stahlschmidt, Valery Festa

amusementparkSTEM

--In this activity student will create an amusement park ride out of KNEX that displays a certain type of motion. They will describe their ride. They will then place it in the correct spot on the map by writing the name of it on the worksheet. After all groups have their rides labeled on the map- students should fill in the lines section of the worksheet- identifying parallel, perpendicular and intersecting lines.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: Jamie Hitz

Dream House Million Dollar Project Unit

This project is meant to be cross-curricular, requiring students to utilize many instructional skills to complete each step. Such skills will include number sense to one million, addition and subtraction to one million, area/perimeter/scaling, 3-D design, and writing/advertising. The project could be completed in sequential order, completed as isolated projects or hand selected for which components are used in your classroom.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Diagram/Illustration, Lesson, Module

Author: Matthew Rogers

Tea Party STEM Challenge

Design a container that will allow your tea to float on the high seas!

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Author: Sarah Cummings

MATTER AND ENERGY IN HEALTHY ECOSYSTEMS

This 5th grade unit will take about 8 weeks, 25.5 hours to complete. Students plan and carry out an original investigation in which they observe the effect of different types of matter on the growth of plants. They create their own observable question with prompting such as: “What type of matter do you think will affect plants’ growth?” or “Do you think the amount of a particular type of matter will affect how the plant grows?” They observe their experiment over a period of seven days (or longer if time allows). At the conclusion of the investigation, students use their data to explain how plants convert matter (gas and liquid) into plant matter.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: Sabrina Ramirez

What Makes Things Move?

Students will use an inquiry based approach to discover and reinforce how things move. They will discover that a push and a pull are a pair of forces that put things into motion. They will also investigate how friction is a force that slows an object in motion.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: Alexis Ketner

At-Home STEAM Projects

This resource is a collection of monthly at-home STEAM challenges that students in Grades K-6 can compete using objects found around the house.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Homework/Assignment

Author: John Marc Murphy

Rube Goldberg Rubric

This resource is a rubric from a STEM Competition in which 4th-6th grade students competed. For this competition, students had to incorporate their understanding of simple machines to build a Rube Goldberg machine that completed a task.

Material Type: Assessment

Author: John Marc Murphy

Friction's Impact on Motion

This lesson looks at the impact friction has on motion by running toy cars on different surfaces. Students will measure the distance the toy car travels down a ramp and see how adding sandpaper as a source of friction impacts distance.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: John Marc Murphy

Force and Motion

Students will be designing and performing an experiment using the scientific method to answer the following question: How can I make a toy car move? Using simple materials, students will explore how a force is a push or a pull.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: John Marc Murphy

Elementary GLOBE: Honing in on Hummingbirds

In this activity, students will record a list of things they already know about hummingbirds and a list of things they would like to learn about hummingbirds. Then they will conduct research to find answers to their questions. Using their new knowledge, each student will make a hummingbird out of art supplies. Finally, using their hummingbirds as props, the students will play charades to test each other in their knowledge of the ruby-throated hummingbirds. The purpose of this activity is to provide students with information on ruby-throated hummingbirds, provide students with the opportunity to conduct research on hummingbirds in topic areas that interest them, and to provide students with opportunities to share their knowledge with other students. By completing this activity, students will gain knowledge about ruby-throated hummingbirds. They will also gain experience researching a topic of their choosing related to hummingbirds and communicating those results in several different formats.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Diagram/Illustration, Interactive, Lesson Plan, Textbook

City X Project

The City X Project is an international educational workshop for 8-12 year-old students that teaches creative problem solving using 3D printing technologies and the design process. This 6-10 hour workshop is designed for 3rd-6th grade classrooms but can be adapted to fit a variety of environments. Read a full overview of the experience here: http://www.cityxproject.com/workshop/

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Diagram/Illustration, Interactive, Lesson Plan, Teaching/Learning Strategy

Authors: Brett Schilke, Libby Falck, Matthew Straub

Integrated STEM UbD Template

Backwards design unit and lesson template for STEM toolkit work

Material Type: Lesson, Lesson Plan, Unit of Study

STEM Inquiry Lesson Template

This template supports STEM teachers and librarians in working collaboratively to create lessons that build science practice and STEM inquiry skills in alignment with state and national science standards, and that address the Common Core literacy shifts around close reading and building textual evidence.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Authors: Megan Simmons, Cynthia Jimes, Joanna Schimizzi, Letha Goger