STEM TOOL KIT
for Kids

Grades 6-8

View the Career Flip Book

Challenge 1: What can STEM do for communities?

Spark Exploration: STEM Careers
Do you know what STEM means? In this activity you'll learn what STEM stands for, then learn about great STEM careers. Open the Flip Book.
Setting the Strategy: Engineering in the Community
What do you think STEM can do for communities? Participate in the group discussion, then consider what you learned. In your own words, what is engineering? What do engineers do?
STEM Challenge! Engineering in Our Community

If you want to see engineering in action, all you need to do is look around! When you walk through your community, what types of engineering might you spot? Maybe new bike lanes are being built. Buildings might have ramps for people with disabilities. There could be street signs with flashing lights to warn drivers to slow down in school zones. Engineering can be found everywhere!

Instructions: Pair up with another kid to make a list of the types of engineering you've seen in your community. First, re-create the below chart on your own sheet of paper, then fill in the columns with the types of engineering that already exist in your community and new engineering projects that could improve people's lives in your community. (After you complete your chart, make sure to save it for the next challenge.)

Use the Tablets!
Imagine ways that your community could be improved. What kind of change would benefit your community? What would you build to bring about this change? Use the Cartoon Maker app to create a short animation that answers the question, "What engineering project can improve my community and how?"

Challenge 2: How are neighborhoods engineered?

Spark Exploration: STEM Careers
Using the information in the STEM Career Flip Book, find out what skills you need to work as a land surveyor. How does this job connect with STEM fields? Open the Flip Book.
Setting the Strategy: Engineering in the Community
Look over your responses on the Engineering in My Community chart from Challenge 1. After you discuss, brainstorm other ways that neighborhoods are engineered.
Use the Tablets!
The Building Blocks program is all about your ideas, but before you can start designing you need information. Use the Google Maps app and get familiarized with your neighborhood. Find your school, home, and local club site. Use the satellite view to see an aerial image, or access the Google Earth app for a street view.
STEM Challenge! Map It

You may know your neighborhood like the back of your hand, but this activity will give you an urban planner's-eye view of your community.

Instructions: Use the map printout of the neighborhood where your Camp Fire site is located to draw the map one grid at a time. As you work, don't forget to draw everything to scale. This will ensure that each grid aligns with the other sections of the map.

When done, tape together each map grid to make a completed neighborhood map. Do the streets match up? Did you and your teammate use the same scale?

Challenge 3: How do we create an engineering model?

Spark Exploration: STEM Careers
Use the science section of the STEM Career Flip Book to discover what food scientists and wildlife biologists do. Open the Flip Book.
Setting the Strategy: Engineering in the Community
Check out the image of an architectural model on the leader's tablet then participate in the group discussion about what you think models are and why they are important to engineers. What do you think engineers have to consider before building a model?
STEM Challenge! 3D City

Maps are very useful, but the view they show of the world can fall, well, flat. Engineers draw their ideas, then build 3D models of their sketches. This allows them to see what their designs will look like in real life.

You've mapped out your community, so why not bring that 2D world off the paper? Follow the step-by-step instructions below to build a 3D model of your community.

Building Steps

Step 1: Choose Your Area: Decide whether you'd like to build a whole city block or just the front of one block. Then use your tablet to view your community on Google Maps and choose an area of two blocks by two blocks.

Step 2: Map our Your Model: Use grid paper to draw in the streets, building lots, parks and other features you will include on your model.

Step 3: You want structures in your community to be proportional to those in real life. Decide the appropriate size of the houses, trees, and other structures that will make up your community. Select dimensions for those items and write them into a scale chart, like the one below, on a piece of paper.

Drafting Session: Planning takes time, but it's worth it to make sure your model comes out the way you want it to. Now that you've recorded all the details of your model, you're ready to create the foundation. Cut a piece of cardboard to the size you'd like to have for your model. Then use your model sketch as a guide to draw in the streets, buildings, and other structures you will include in your model.

Building Session: To build your community, cut pieces of cardboard and tape or glue them together to shape the buildings' walls and roofs. Think about structures like bridges or water towers. How can you build your community out of the materials at hand? Add finishing touches to make your 3D model more realistic. For example, show grass or parks by coloring these areas green or by covering them with a piece of green construction paper.

Challenge 4: What is innovative engineering?

Spark Exploration: STEM Careers

Use the STEM Career Flip Book to read about civil engineers in the Engineering section. What role do you think civil engineers played in the engineering of your community? What goals did these engineers set out to achieve in your community? If you were a civil engineer, what would you build? Why would it be important to you and others in your community. Open the Flip Book.

Setting the Strategy: Engineering in the Community
What do you think it means to be innovative? Check out three examples of innovative engineering on the leader's tablet.
Once you've learned about these innovative designs, think of some new ways to use them to help your community.
Use the Tablets!

Using the Building Big website, investigate the basic structures used by engineers in their designs: http://to.pbs.org/1hDKL4Q. Note the purposes that each structure serves and why they are useful.

After you've learned about basic engineering structures, try out the interactive
labs on the Building Big website: http://to.pbs.org/1hlikxx.

STEM Challenge! Build a Better Bridge

You just learned about the techniques engineers use to build structures that hold up under all sorts of conditions. Remember to manage your goals instead of simply setting them. Through GPS you will make your goal selection, create your plan, try it, and even "shift gears" to improve your design if you encounter challenges. Now it's your turn to build a sturdy structure of your own.

Instructions: Read the passage below to learn how engineers build superstrong bridges. Then follow the instructions to construct your own bridge that won't buckle under pressure.

Build It:

  1. Stack the books: Make two stacks of books that are the same height with 3 inches between the stacks.
  2. Lay the bridge: Lay an index card lengthwise across the gap.
  3. Add the load: Pile pennies in the middle of the card. How many can it hold before collapsing?

Reflect and Shift Gears

  1. Adapt your bridge: Reflect and come up with three adaptations your team can make to better strengthen your bridge. Consider what materials you can add or how you can change the shape of your bridge using engineering structures.
  2. Retest your bridge: Test all three adaptations to your bridge to see which holds the most weight. Remember to interact with other teams and your leader to share adaptation ideas.

Challenge 5: What is the connection between
community needs and innovative design?

Spark Exploration: STEM Careers
If there is time, open the STEM Career Flip Book to learn about software and web developers. Open the Flip Book.
Setting the Strategy: Engineering in the Community
After you discuss what goals guide engineering designs, check out three cool technological innovations on your tablet.
Google Self-Driving Cars
Bluefin-21 Submersible
Soccket
STEM Challenge! Talk About It

Reflect on what would make your community a better place to live. If you have opinions on this matter, now's your opportunity to share them!

Instructions: Complete this community survey with your team by talking about the questions below. Write down your team's responses on this sheet and compare everyone's answers. What do you all agree on? What do you disagree on?

Use the Tablets!

Using the ideas you came up with during the STEM Challenge! discussion, brainstorm ideas for an innovation that could benefit your community. Work with your teammate to draw out one of your ideas. You can draw on a sheet of paper or use the Picasso app to draw on the tablet.

NOTE: You can save your drawings on the Picasso app by tapping the red folder at the bottom of the screen and selecting "Save." When you're ready to keep editing your drawing, return to Picasso and tap the red folder at the bottom of the screen again and select "Load," then tap your drawing to start editing.

Challenge 6: How do engineers create
innovative designs?

Spark Exploration: STEM Careers
Use the STEM Career Flip Book to learn about drafters in the Engineering section. When do you think a drafter would be involved in a building project? What do you think a drafter's goal is when working with a team? Open the Flip Book.
Setting the Strategy: Engineering the Community
With your teammate, look back over your notes on your team responses to the Challenge 5 STEM Challenge! Talk about it questions. Which community issues do you think are of the greatest importance and why? Discuss which issues you think matter most and work with your teammate to choose one topic to focus on as you create an innovation of your own.
STEM Challenge! Brainstorm

It's not always easy to come up with solutions to a problem. It helps to brainstorm to create a list of possibilities. Use this activity to spark a flood of ideas!

Instructions: Write the important community issue your team would like to fix in the "Problem or Need" square below. Then come up with an innovation that could be a potential solution. Next, consider what it will take for your innovation to work. The Brainstorm diagram will help you map out your thoughts so you don't get stuck.

Challenge 7: How can we improve innovative designs?

Engineering in Action

Participate in the group discussion about what it was like to create your own innovation. What community need does your team's innovation meet? What goals did you set for your innovation. Reflect on how engineers might determine what improvements to make to a design.

STEM Challenge! Troubleshooting

Will your innovation work as expected? You won't know until you test it in a real-life scenario. Use this role-play activity to look for possible problems with your design.

Get Ready

Think of some characters for your role-play. These will be specific people who will interact with your innovation. Read the roles described in the chart below and then identify some characters who can play these roles.

Troubleshooting Roles

Act It Out

Now that you have your characters, act out a short scene involving your innovation. All team members should be involved and should pretend to interact with the innovation. As you're acting it out, notice what works the way you think it will and what doesn't.

Reflect and Shift Gears

On the back of this sheet, write down any issues that arose during the role-playing activity. Then brainstorm solutions to address these issues so your innovation better meets your community's needs.

Use the Tablets!

With your teammate, review the issues you discovered during the role-playing activity. Discuss each other's solutions and build off each other's ideas to come up with a team revision. Then use the Picasso app or a sheet of paper to revise your innovation's design based on your conversation.

Challenge 8: How can we show how innovative
design works?

Engineering in Action
Brainstorm! What are some ways that engineers could show the community how an innovation will work? Think about some of the tools they could use. Then participate in the group conversations about flowcharts.
Use the Tablets!
Check out an example of a flowchart on your leader's tablet and below. After you discuss how a flowchart works, use the Simple Flow Chart app to create if/then statements for your innovations!
STEM Challenge! Set the Scene

A flowchart may reveal how an innovation will work, but it doesn't give the whole picture. To really show your innovation in action, you're going to create a storyboard by following the steps below. It will show, in a series of images, how people in your neighborhood will use your innovation.

  1. Plan Your Panels: Jot down some ideas for a series of illustrations that will show residents of your community using your innovation. You will use six sheets of paper as your six storyboard panels. The panels should tell a visual story like a scene in a movie. Make sure the scene unfolds panel-by-panel in a logical order so that anyone who views it will understand the steps of how your innovation works.
  2. Ready, Set, Draw: Begin drawing rough pencil illustrations for each panel in the storyboard template below. Work together as a team to decide whether or not the sketches are effective. Make revisions to be sure you're presenting your innovation in the best way possible. When done, add final details, outlines, and color to the panels.
  3. Mount Your Storyboard: Arrange the panels in order in two rows of three on a piece of poster board. Give your storyboard a title and add text or dialogue underneath each panel to help explain what's happening in each. Make sure you make any text on poster large enough for an audience to read.

Challenge 9: How do we create a model of our
innovative design?

Engineering in Action
During this challenge, you'll consider why it's important to build a prototype before producing an actual design. As you are participating in the group discussion, consider why designs need to be tested. What happens if a design fails?
STEM Challenge! Model Construction

You've worked long and hard setting goals and strategies to develop a design idea to benefit your community. Now it's time to show others what your innovation will look like in real life. So just like a real engineer, you're going to build a model of your innovation.

Instructions: Make sure your model building goes smoothly. Before you begin, use the checklist below to outline the building process.

Final Presentation

Sharing your ideas in front of a group can sometimes be intimidating. But don’t worry! This guide will help you increase your presentation skills.

Instructions: Complete the steps below on a separate sheet of paper to learn what important information to include in your presentation. Make sure you know which team member will present which part of the presentation. Then read the "Helpful Talking Points" to assist your team in preparing the presentation speech.

Presentation Guide