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 and 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?
