Looking for Easter activities that your students will love but are more than just a craft or activity to pass the time? The Carrot Carriage STEM Challenge (or STEAM Challenge) will keep your students engaged in brain-busting work disguised as fun!
The basic premise:
Working against criteria & constraints individually or in partners/groups, students will design and build a carriage made primarily of carrots that will hold cargo and roll downhill.
Note: Click here for the printable version of this resource.
Resource includes:
- NGSS aligned standards, Grades 2 – 8
- Teacher Tips:
- Links to my 5-part video series on getting started with STEM challenges
- Materials and timing
- Criteria & Constraints (including modifications to increase difficulty for older students)
- Measuring results
- Universal STEM Challenge Notes & How to Use Student Handouts
- Post-design extension activities list
- Link to a video walk-through of the challenge
- Student Slides:
- Criteria & Constraints List
- Results and Design Analysis
- Discussion Questions
- Extension templates
- Top 10 Reasons to Eat Your Carrots
- Top 10 Reasons the Easter Bunny needs a Carrot Carriage
- Estimate & Measure 1 (inches & centimeters)
- Estimate & Measure 2 (standard & non-standard with conversion table)
- Measure & Convert (customary to metric & within metric)
- Process Flow Map
- Create Word Problems
Sample/suggested materials for each student or group:
(Materials you’ll need to do the activity are easily modified.)
-
- Note: The links below are Amazon Affiliate links. Find out more on the disclosure page.
- Large carrots (4 – 6)
- Small carrots (4 – 8)
- Peeps bunnies (1)
- Plastic eggs (1)
- Butter knife or plastic knife (1)
- Straws (1-2)
- Toothpicks (10 – 20)
- Brass fasteners (4 – 8)
- Scissors
- Ramp (1)
- Simple ramp will be used to test designs (e.g. textbook propped at an angle)
- Ruler (1)
- Used to measure travel distance of carriages
- Design analysis handouts (included in resource)
Optional:
- Cutting boards
- Rubber bands
- Balloons
- String/yarn
- Foil
- Large carrots (4 – 6)
- Note: The links below are Amazon Affiliate links. Find out more on the disclosure page.
Benefits of this STEM Design Challenge:
- Focus on critical thinking, problem solving, and application of learning
- Helps students develop growth mindset traits like persistence and resilience
- High levels of student engagement
- The potential to hit upon all NGSS ETS standards depending on the depth and number of iterations you choose to implement in your classroom (modifications included)
- Highly flexible and differentiated for materials, timing, grade levels, and rigor.
Each design iteration should be planned for ~60 min. if you are including data gathering and analysis rather than just building for fun. If you add extension activities, you will need to adjust timing accordingly.
This resource is available in a printable format, as well as in discounted bundles.
If you prefer to purchase on TpT, click here.
Note: any coupon/promo codes for this site will only work on this site. TpT does not have the option for individual stores to offer promo codes.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.