Real-World STEM Challenges for Elementary Students
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Learning about real-world problems is a great way to engage your students and get them excited about STEM. Introducing your students to real-world problem solving also increases student buy-in as they realize that their work has an impact beyond the classroom walls.
The following are 4 of our favorite read alouds and STEM challenges to engage students in real-world problem solving.
The Watcher
The Watcher by Jeanette Winter is the story of Jane Goodall and her life with the chimps. You can adventure with young Jane as she watches the world around her change. Jane’s childhood curiosity lead to her dreams coming true of traveling to Africa to work with animals. The Watcher is a story of how Jane created a home living among the chimps to observe how they live and interact with one another. This is the perfect story to integrate real-world STEM and learn about conservation. Your students can plan, design, and execute their own ideas for creating a tool to capture bugs just like the termites the chimps like to eat.
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer is a true story about William, a 14-year-old boy, who lived in a small village in Malawi. The rain disappeared, followed by their crops and his family’s ability to make money. William had to drop out of school but his curiosity propelled him to continue exploring the world around him. William followed his dream to bring light and water to his village. Teach students about green energy and wind power. Invite them into the story as a problem-solver with a STEAM challenge to design their own windmill.
Nya’s Long Walk
Nya’s Long Walk by Linda Sue Park tells the inspirational story of two sisters from South Sudan who take a long walk to collect water. Nya runs into trouble on the journey when her sister becomes ill. Step-by-step she carried her sister and the water back to her home. Teach students about the water crisis and water pollution affecting nearly 1 billion people around the world and explore how water pumps can help. Invite students to help solve this real-world problem by constructing a water pump out of materials like cups, balloons, and straws.
Seeds of Change
Seeds of Change by Jen Cullerton Johnson & Sonia Lynn Sadler is the life story of Wangari Maathai. Wangari became the first African woman and the first environmentalist to win a Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. As a young girl, Wangari was taught by her mother to respect nature. She was curious, hardworking and excelled in science. After completing her education, rare for females, she continued on to study in the United States. After returning home to Kenya, she used her persistence, patience, and commitment to promote women’s rights and save their land one seed at a time. Teach students about the importance of nature and engage them with the opportunity to create a seed bomb to plant and observe over time.
Learn more about this challenge!
Real-World Problem Solving with STEM
If your students aren’t excited about STEM, the problem might be a lack of exposure to real life applications. Real-world problem solving should be at the core of any STEM education program. It increases student buy-in as students realize that their work has an impact that extends beyond the classroom walls. Students develop empathy as they take a walk in someone else’s shoes understanding their problems before coming up with potential solutions.
These read-aloud lesson ideas are already planned and ready to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers.
All 4 of these real-world STEM activities are bundled at a discount and available in our TPT store.
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