New Year STEM

New Years Celebration STEM Challenge - This clock tower building STEM challenge meets several NGSS standards and encourages critical thinking, budgeting, and engineering skills and is a perfect New Years activity. Oh no! The town wants to host a New Years Eve Celebration, but they need a clock tower for the townspeople to watch. The town needs the help of your students! Design and create a clock with a hand that will turn using available supplies such as paper plates and straws. The clock must be atop a "clock tower" that stands at least one foot high. This STEM will get your students using their critical thinking skills to solve this challenge! Students must stick to a budget and use the available supplies.

Suggested Plan of Implementation:

Prior Week: Send home the parent letter requesting supplies. Gather needed materials.
Day One – Introduce the Problem and the STEM Challenge.
Day Two – Introduce and discuss the budget options. Use the planning page to illustrate or write out the building idea.
Day Three – “Purchase” supplies for the build. Work on budget. Begin the building process.
Day Four – Work on and complete the structure.
Day Five – Complete the Self-Evaluation Page

This is certainly not the only way to use these materials. They are designed to be flexible and be used to best suit each classroom and teacher based on the ability of the learner, time constraints and teacher preference.

Please check out the preview to get a glimpse of everything that is included.

You will get:

"The Problem" slide to discuss the problem with the students.

"The Challenge" slide to discuss with students

"Let's Talk About It - New Years Celebrations" Slide

NGSS standards

Plan for Implementation

Supply List

Parent Letter requesting supplies

Student Building Plan (2 versions)

STEM Challenge Journal Page (or stand alone printable)

Budget Page

Budget Spending Page (2 versions for differentiation)

Self-Evaluation

"Check it Out Walk" page - recording sheet to look at other students' work

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STEM Mega Bundle - A Growing Bundle for the Year

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