We are thrilled to support Massachusetts STEM Week again with a free engineering design challenge to bring engineering to students everywhere! Massachusetts STEM Week 2023 takes place October 16-20 and is organized by the Executive Office of Education and the STEM Advisory Council in partnership with the state’s nine Regional STEM Networks.
To support the celebration, we have created a FREE modified version of the EiE Unit: Designing Plant Packages. This challenge is perfect to do with students in grade 3–5! This year’s design challenge takes place over three days and encourages students to apply their knowledge of the basic needs of plants as they engineer a package to help keep a plant safe and healthy during transport.
Day 1- Ask-What’s the Problem: Students will identify materials they could use to improve the base package, so it better meets the needs of a plant.
Day 2-Imagine, Plan, and Create: Students will imagine several ways to design a plant package that meets the criteria and then collaborate to plan and create a plant package design.
Day 3-Test, Improve, and Consider Impacts: Students will improve a plant package design based on the data they collected during testing before discussing the impacts of packaging design and how it can help reduce food waste.
To participate in this year’s Design Challenge, login and/or create an account on Learn.EiE.org to access the FREE challenge. Look for the Engineering Design Challenge unit that includes everything you’ll need to complete the challenge with your students.
To help educators prepare to complete the design challenge with their own students, our Professional Learning Manager Mallory Schmidt will host a step-by-step challenge walkthrough webinar on September 28th, 2023. Sign up to join the webinar.
Looking for other ways to celebrate Mass STEM Week?
The Museum of Science has developed several other engineering design challenges for educators and students in grades PreK-2, 3-5, and 6-8. Each of the challenges are age-appropriate and allows for flexibility in implementation. For projects focused on grade bands K-2, 3-5, and 6-8, look for our Environmental Engineering design challenges from Mass STEM Week 2021, where learners encounter an environmental challenge and work to design a solution. Our Mass STEM Week Challenge 2022 was designed for grades 6-8 where learners explore the properties that make conventional fossil-fuel-based plastics both useful and harmful. They design bioplastics with similar useful properties but fewer harmful ones.
The Museum of Science has also developed a library of activities on Kahoot on various topics such as engineering, plants, animals, space, weather, and more!
We hope you’ll celebrate Mass STEM Week with your students and with us. We can’t wait to hear what you think. Let us know in the comments and the feedback survey. Happy teaching!
