Need a fun and hands-on Earth Day activity? Challenge your students to an oil spill clean-up! Read on for a STEM challenge that teaches environmental consciousness, problem solving, and team work along with extension math problems that use measurement, percentages, and volume calculations. Our students loved this activity, and we think yours will too! 

No FBI report or stolen data this time! My Space Club students successfully launched and recovered a weather balloon from 80,000 feet! Read to learn about our adventure and tips to complete your own balloon launch. 

The Super Bowl is almost here! While I am planning to consume large amounts of buffalo wings and chips and dip, I am reminded that there is more that goes into this monumental day in America than just good entertainment. Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM), is present in every aspect of this beloved game. This truth provides a wonderful opportunity to get kids involved in an early love of STEM.

Last year, I started a new Space Club program at four middle schools. Not wanting to reinvent the wheel, I searched the web for ideas and curriculum to implement. I soon became excited to find great resources like NASA and TeachEngineering, but I was also overwhelmed as a simple Google search for "Space STEM activities" gives you a mere 89 million hits. Wading through a lot of junk eventually brought some gems that I could implement, and I leave it to another post to rant about the lack of quality in many activities that claim to be "STEM." 

I don’t know about where you live, but here in Texas it has been really hot outside! Shocking, I know! So how do my munchkin and I beat the heat while having fun and learning a little along the way? Well, besides squeezing in our daily airing of Frozen, we built a snowman!

I know you have been waiting on pins and needles on the update from the last balloon launch failure! The students were very disappointed in the lost data, but they learned a valuable lesson of engineering. Failure is an integral part of all engineering, and it provides an opportunity to learn and try again! 

After a successful launch, the balloon team was on fire! We had just successfully launched a balloon into the stratosphere, and everyone was jumping from excitement. But very quickly our enthusiasm turned to dread as we had yet to receive a GPS signal. We went from the high of releasing the balloon to a state of depression as we anxiously refreshed the webpage, hoping the GPS would come through. Without a signal, all hope was lost for recovering the balloon.

After years of STEM activities, including towers, bridges, race cars, and rockets, one of my favorites is the classic catapult challenge! It incorporates all aspects of a quality STEM activity: easy math connection, engineering design process, student-driven learning, and hands-on fun! Read on to see my ideas to incorporate into your classroom.

The Pipe Cleaner (aka "Fuzzy Sticks") Challenge is one of my favorite STEM activities to introduce students to STEM learning. This is a fun, inexpensive, and engaging challenge that can be tailored to different ages, settings, and time-frames.  This challenge is also an excellent team icebreaker.