Description
Winter STEM activities will engage your students in engineering and science activities for Winter. Students will use science and engineering practices to tackle these winter stem challenges. They will use design thinking as they test and troubleshoot during these stem activities for winter. Each activity has a science or engineering concept that connects.
Five STEM Challenges for Winter are included:
- Make a snowball launcher- force, motion, and energy
- Make snowflake light-up ornament -simple electrical circuit
- Build an Igloo-Engineering and Design
- Build a paper circuit light up snowman -Electrical circuit with a switch
- Expanding Snowman- Chemical and physical reactions
This resource includes:
- detailed lesson plans with pictures and clear directions
- follow-up pages for each STEM challenge
- a nonfiction article on igloos.
These Winter STEM activities are aligned with NGSS k-5 Standards for Engineering.
3-5-ETS1-1. Define a simple design problem reflecting a need or a want that includes specified criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost.
3-5-ETS1-2. Generate and compare multiple possible solutions to a problem based on how well each is likely to meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.
3-5-ETS1-3. Plan and carry out fair tests in which variables are controlled and failure points are considered to identify aspects of a model or prototype that can be improved.
Students will use ALL Science and Engineering Practices
- Asking questions (for science) and defining problems (for engineering)
- Developing and using models
- Planning and carrying out investigations
- Analyzing and interpreting data
- Using mathematics and computational thinking
- Constructing explanations (for science) and designing solutions (for engineering)
- Engaging in argument from evidence
- Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information
Science Concepts:
- Electrical circuits
- Making a switch
- Physical and chemical reactions
- Building and constructing
- Design Thinking and Engineering
- Testing and Refining
- Force, motion, and energy
Materials Needed:
You will need coin batteries and LED lights for the light-up ornaments.
You will need copper tape and LED lights and coin batteries for the paper circuit snowman.
You will need sugar cubes for the igloo.
You will need Alka-seltzer for the expanding snowman
You will need misc junk and ping pong balls or large marshmallows for the snowball launcher.
Want to see some examples from the Winter STEM Challenges?
