Space STEM STEAM Activities 5 Challenges Straw Balloon Rocket Parachute Bridge

This is a set of 5 space-themed STEM challenges centered around the story of a group of scientists who must travel to Jupiter to save mankind. After watching the introductory “movie trailer” and hearing the opening storyline, students will read 5 of the team's travel log entries. Each one will challenge them to design something to help them survive and save the humans back on Earth.

STEM Challenges in this set:

• 3-2-1 Blastoff: Design a Rocket

• Touchdown: Build an Orbiter Landing Device

• Don’t Look Down: Construct a Crater Crossing

• Look Out Below: Create a Supply Drop (parachute)

• Home Sweet Home: Build a Living Pod

These STEM challenges use common materials that you probably already have in your classroom. They incorporate concepts of linear measurement, volume, area, geometry, heat and temperature, force and motion, and scientific process.

Each of the 5 STEM challenges includes:

• teacher instructions

• student challenge sheet

• planning and design pages

• scoring rubric

• vocabulary cards (when needed)

There is also a set of team member role cards, design process cards, a master score sheet to find out which group is the most successful at helping the explorers, a challenge requirements cheat sheet, and associated NGSS standards.

The file includes both standard (imperial) and metric versions.

The "movie trailer" video is also included in the file for you to show students.

Each challenge in this pack is fully planned out making it easy to get started. They are also highly engaging because students are involved in solving a real-life problem.

FAQ

How long does each challenge take to complete?

This somewhat depends on the age of your students. I have found that the older students spend more time brainstorming and really planning their designs. They are also more careful when building and testing.

Each challenge includes reading part of the storyline. This may take 5 minutes or 15, depending on if your students engage in conversation about it. Then students will need to brainstorm, plan, and collect their materials.

The actual building and testing portion of the challenges usually takes about an hour. If you want your students to go back and make improvements to their designs, that will add more time.

Overall, I would plan on using two class periods to complete each challenge from start to finish.

Why don't you list specific quantities for each material?

It is important to remember that STEM is a process that requires brainstorming, hypothesizing, planning, designing, and testing. If you tell students how much to use of certain items, they will use exactly that much. This completely defeats the purpose of STEM and turns it into doing a craft.

We want students to think about what would work best to meet their goal. When you tell them exactly what to use and how much, you're doing the thinking for them. You can certainly limit how much students can take of each material. The challenges are very flexible. They include a list of suggested materials and note which ones are actually required. You can eliminate, limit, or add any other materials you like.

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