Limited Capacity full
Adding this to your schedule will put you on the waitlist.
Roll up your sleeves and dive into quick, tech-free STEM builds that spark creativity and engagement from the start. These playful engineering challenges are perfect for the STEM lab, makerspace, or classroom and can stand alone or extend into core learning goals across literacy, math, science, and civics. After a high-energy, hands-on, team-based creature and habitat design challenge focused on animal adaptations, habitats, and the meaning behind scientific names, we will explore ways to extend the learning into cross-curricular PBL that can integrate literacy, math, physical science, or technology based on class resources and teaching goals You will leave with inspiration, a ready-to-use STEM-Starter Card Deck, and a cardboard “beastie” of your own design!
In this highly interactive session, educators will experience how quick, tech-free STEM builds can serve as powerful entry points into deeper, standards-aligned learning across all teaching areas in the K–8 grade band. Grounded in research-informed pedagogy and active learning principles, participants will engage in a series of fast-paced, team-based engineering challenges using simple materials, beginning with a collaborative creature design challenge where participants analyze clues from animal phenotypes and scientific names to backward design a likely habitat, incorporating elements of adaptation, environment, and survival.
These “STEM Starters” are intentionally designed as low-floor, high-engagement experiences that can be implemented in STEM labs, makerspaces, or classrooms as stand-alone activities. They are accessible to all educators, regardless of STEM background, and scaffolded within a structured framework that builds educator confidence and instructional capacity over time. At the same time, they offer high ceilings and wide walls, allowing for deeper exploration and creativity for more advanced learners.
A key focus of this session is highlighting easy, low-barrier ways for all educators to bring meaningful STEM experiences into their classrooms, regardless of background or available resources. These quick builds are designed to be immediately implementable while building both student engagement and educator confidence, and can also serve as a powerful entry point that bridges STEM programs and classroom instruction, extending into deeper, standards-aligned, cross-curricular learning. Educators will explore how highly motivating, hands-on builds created in a STEM lab or makerspace can be extended into the classroom to support core, standards-based learning goals. We will model a variety of ways to connect builds to literacy through storytelling and descriptive writing, to math through measurement, geometry, and scaled models, to science through animal adaptations, habitats, ecosystems, and how movement and structure support survival, including the role of forces and motion, and to technology through presentation tools such as ChatterPix, Book Creator, stop motion animation, and Canva.
Throughout the session, participants will experience strategies for differentiation, collaboration, and student-centered facilitation that support diverse learners and multiple entry points. The session will also highlight how these quick builds can transition from playful exploration to structured academic applications without losing student engagement, reflecting a developmentally aligned progression from exploration to application.
Participants will leave with ready-to-use activities, practical strategies for integrating hands-on STEM into existing curricula, and a clear instructional framework for extending quick builds into deeper classroom learning. Most importantly, they will walk away with inspiration, increased confidence in facilitating hands-on learning, and a tangible model they can immediately bring back to their students.
For this workshop - attendees will be provided Mini-maker kits and a deck of challenge cards ($12.50 value per attendee)
