IF I COULD BUILD THE ALPHABET

Storybook STEM

Caution! Grab your hardhat and safety goggles because the alphabet is “under construction.” Students will pick a letter of the alphabet and choose their own materials to plan, design, and construct a letter as a creative literacy engineer.

DON’T CRACK THE EGG

Storybook STEM

Whoops! Humpty Dumpty “sat on the wall” and “had a great fall.” Let’s turn back time to keep Humpty Dumpty from getting hurt. Students will use various materials to engineer a device that will protect an egg from cracking after its great fall.

NGSS: K-PS2-2, ETS1.A, ETS1.B

HOG HOUSES

Storybook STEM

The Big Bad Wolf is back for more! Protect the three little pigs from their furry predator by helping them build strong, safe houses. Students will use open-ended materials to plan, design, and build a structure to keep the pigs safe from the Big Bad Wolf’s “huff and puff” antics.

NGSS: K-PS2-1, K-LS1-1, ETS1.A, ETS1.B CCSS RL.K.10

FROM CRAWLING CATERPILLAR TO BEAUTIFUL BUTTERFLY

Storybook STEM

Wait, caterpillars can’t consume cupcakes! Carle’s caterpillar becomes sick when he eats junk food in the story. So, what do caterpillars eat? How do they change from a crawling caterpillar to a beautiful butterfly? Students will explore these questions as they learn about the life cycle of a butterfly.

NGSS: K-LS1-1, K-ESS3-1

WEATHER BOOKS

Weather

What’s the weather like? Design a weather report folder to use for observing and describing the weather. Students will see how weather affects our daily lives as we discuss the importance of dressing for the weather.

NGSS: K-ESS2.D

PLANT IN A BOTTLE

Living and Non-Living Things

Students will build their own terrarium to take home, while investigating living and non-living things.

NGSS: K-LS1-1, K-ESS3-1, K-ESS3-3, 1-LS1-1

SHEEP IN A JEEP

Forces and Motion

Use a ramp, a sheep, and a jeep to investigate how pushes and pulls make objects travel various distances.

NGSS: K-PS2-1, K-PS2-2

COLOR CRAZE

Storybook STEM

Poor Camilla Cream… Her skin has turned green. And red, orange, yellow, blue, and purple, too! Our skin cannot change color like Camilla Cream’s, but we can create the color of the rainbow ourselves. Students will create a self-portrait then use primary colors to give themselves “a bad case of stripes.”

LANDFORMS

Explore Earth! Students will use clay to sculpt mountains, valleys, plains, plateaus, and other major landforms. Investigate where on earth these landforms can be found and what forces help shape our world. Discover the many different landforms that are located in our state of Michigan.

NGSS: 2-ESS2-2, 3-G1.0.1, 3-G1.0.2

LIGHT & SHADOWS

Investigate the properties of this form of energy, while exploring shadows, mirrors and the light spectrum. Discover how you can block, reflect, and bend light with hands-on activities.

NGSS: 1-PS4-2, 1-PS4-3

SOUND

What makes sound? Students will find out as they investigate vibrations, pitch, and loudness with fun hands-on activities.

NGSS: 1-PS4-1, 1-LS1-1

MOON PHASE BOOKS

Make a glow-in-the-dark moon phase book that will help students explore the predictable pattern of the shapes of the Moon we can see on Earth.

NGSS: 1-ESS1-1

BUILD YOUR OWN ECOSYSTEM – PLANT PARTS

Students will build an independent ecosystem to take home, while exploring plant parts. See how each of these structures help plants survive and grow.

NGSS: 1-LS1-1

WATER FILTRATION

Where does the water come from? Where does it go? Students will explore the hydrosphere as they clean dirty water with filtration systems that they design, build, and test.

NGSS: 5-ESS2-2

GROUNDWATER

Build and manipulate a model groundwater system, while learning how removing, adding, and polluting water impacts our underground water system.

NGSS: 2-ESS2-3

GALACTIC GOO

Chemistry at its finest and most fun! Matter, molecules, and polymers will be discussed in this hands-on activity. Each student will make and take home a bag of their own goo!

NGSS: 2-PS1-1, 2-PS1-2, 2-PS1-3, 2-PS1-4

LANDFORMS

Explore Earth! Students will use clay to sculpt mountains, valleys, plains, plateaus, and other major landforms. Investigate where on earth these landforms can be found and what forces help shape our world. Discover the many different landforms that are located in our state of Michigan.

NGSS: 2-ESS2-2, 3-G1.0.1, 3-G1.0.2

BUILD YOUR OWN ECOSYSTEM – NEEDS OF LIVING THINGS

Investigate ecosystems and the water cycle, and learn what living things need to survive. Students will build an independent ecosystem to take home. Work collaboratively to design an investigation that explores how light affects plant growth.

NGSS: 2-LS2-1

ICE CREAM

A sweet way to study solids, liquids, and gases! Working in groups, students will use beakers, measuring cups, and measuring spoons to mix up solids and liquids into an ice cream base. Educators will add the “magic liquid” that changes their liquid into solid ice cream. Each student gets some ice cream to taste.

NGSS: 2-PS1-1, 2-PS1-3, 2-PS1-4

FOSSIL SCIENCE

Make a plaster fossil model to take home and touch real fossils, while learning how fossils are formed and how they provide evidence of life long ago.

NGSS: 3-LS4-1, 4-ESS1-1

MARBLE ROLLER COASTERS

Investigate balanced and unbalanced forces acting on a marble as students build a roller coaster that moves a marble through upside-down loops, curves, and drops.

NGSS: 3-PS2-1, 3-PS2-2

BUILD YOUR OWN ECOSYSTEM – CHANGING ENVIRONMENTS

Investigate ecosystems and the water cycle, and learn what living things need to survive. Students will build an independent ecosystem to take home. Work collaboratively to design an investigation that explores how changing environmental features affect plant growth.

NGSS: 3-LS4-4

CATCH A WAVE

Energy moves in waves! Students will use duct tape, skewers, and modeling clay to build wave models that demonstrate how energy moves through matter. Students will explore mechanical waves, wave frequency, and amplitude.

NGSS: 4-PS4-1

ELECTRICAL CIRCUITS

Students will explore the basics of electrical circuits while experimenting with batteries, buzzers, bulbs, and switches. Students will make a paper circuit project to take home.

NGSS: 4-PS3-2, 4-PS3-4

EYE DISSECTION

Students will explore the structure and function of an eye while learning how objects are seen when light reflects off the surface and enters the eye. Students will dissect a sheep eye.

NGSS: 4-PS4-2, 4-LS1-2

PHYSICAL & CHEMICAL CHANGES

Students will explore how matter changes, while observing changes in state of matter and making separating mixtures. Students will follow procedures and look for evidence of chemical changes, while measuring and mixing chemicals to create chemical reactions.

NGSS: 5-PS1-2

MYSTERY POWDER

Someone has spilled white powder in the Learning Lab. Students will use observation and a series of chemical tests to collect data on known powders and then compare that data to the unknown powder’s tests to identify it.

NGSS: 5-PS1-3

OWL PELLETS & FOOD WEBS

Whooo eats who? Explore how energy moves through an owl’s food web while dissecting an owl pellet. Learn about owl adaptations that make these birds of prey such successful hunters.

NGSS: 5-PS3-1, 5-LS2-1

MOON PHASES & ECLIPSES

Students will make a glow-in-the-dark Moon phase book and an eclipse project, while exploring the motion of the Earth and Moon.

NGSS: 5-ESS1-2

TELESCOPE WORKSHOP

Using telescopes, students will learn about the properties of light, how light propagates through space, and how astronomers use lenses and telescopes to measure properties of distant objects. This class focuses on using a mixture of hands-on application and data driven analysis to expand the students’ understanding of light and astronomy.

NGSS: MS-PS4-1, MS-PS4-2, MS-ESS1-3