STEM education is a wonderful addition to your classroom curriculum and provides hands-on learning experiences so that children can make connections between their learning and the world around them. STEM challenges allow students the freedom to test and refine their designs, giving them the opportunity to learn and understand more through failure.
Discover new STEM challenges to include in your classroom curriculum and learn why failure is an important element in STEM pedagogy.
STEM and the Benefits of Failure
STEM challenges provide the opportunity to help students adopt a mindset that will influence their work for the rest of their lives—their ability to persevere and believe in the process and to know that their success and self-worth are not determined by the outcome of the challenge, but rather by their belief in themselves. We are part of fueling that belief. We are part of modeling the mindset that engages students in creative thinking. We are part of helping them understand that many times, failure is one of the best stops on the road to success. Learn why including STEM challenges that embrace failure is an important mindset to foster within the classroom.
Blubber Glove STEM Project: How Polar Bears Stay Warm in Winter
Who doesn’t love a hands-on activity? Most often, the lessons our students remember are the ones that require active participation. This winter-themed STEM lesson on polar bears challenges students to create a blubber glove and offers an interesting way to engage students in learning about winter animals.
Native American STEM Challenge: Build a Native American Shelter
This STEM challenge arrives just in time for Thanksgiving celebrations and fall lessons. Children use their problem-solving skills in a creative way while developing a better appreciation for the challenges that colonists in the New World faced 400 years ago. Children learn how Native Americans taught colonists to build homes in the 1600s using only what they could find in nature. Children design and build a model version of their own.
STEM Challenges for the Classroom: build a ship, skyscraper and bridge
Learn how to teach three physical science STEM challenges for grades 3–5 from Evan-Moor’s STEM Lessons and Challenges. These projects are simple versions of real-world examples of science that kids see every day: cargo ships, skyscrapers, and bridges! Hands-on learning activities like these make STEM concepts fun, simple and applicable!
Heather Foudy is a certified elementary teacher with over 7 years’ experience as an educator and volunteer in the classroom. She enjoys creating lessons that are meaningful and creative for students. She is currently working for Evan-Moor’s marketing and communications team and enjoys building learning opportunities that are both meaningful and creative for students and teachers alike.