Ready for a highly engaging STEM challenge? The Airplane STEM Challenge is the perfect activity! Students love throwing paper airplanes, so why not channel that energy into a hands-on STEM project? In this activity, students will experiment, test, and redesign to create the ultimate paper plane. Its a fun way to teach key STEM skills like problem-solving, experimentation, and design iteration. Perfect for STEM elementary classrooms, this challenge is guaranteed to keep your students engaged!What is the challenge?This SUPER resource contains a complete STEM lesson, using the Engineering Design Process, covering 3-5 class sessions.The lesson focuses on creating an aerodynamic paper plane by testing and modifying it. Students create a paper airplane and fly it five times- keeping a data table of the measurements. This plane is modified two times and flight data is recorded. The data table also has the students determine an average flight distance. After comparing flight distances and modifications students are challenged to build the ultimate paper plane! This was tested with 4th-5th graders and works perfectly with this age!What is your prep?You will need materials for this activity: paper, tape, measuring tools, calculators, and a large space for flying planes! You will need a large space for flying the planes and a tape reel to mark landing spots and measure distances. Use plastic bins to store materials for this multi-day activity!This product specifically includesCover SheetTable of ContentsTeacher Overview9 pages of Step by step-by-step procedures using the Engineering Design Process formatPlane folding directionsVocabulary sheetLab sheets for use with each step of the design processSample Answer Key for lab sheetsScoring rubrics in 2 formatsAll forms are provided in an editable format.What are teachers saying?"This resource was absolutely amazing and so much fun! There was little to prep and my students were so excited to be able to make and fly some airplanes! Thank you so much!""Thank you, TAT, for creating and sharing this engaging and complete project-based learning experience. My students last year were my guinea pigs - but no animals were harmed! It is very rewarding when they ended up calling each other engineers!""A+++ Very well organized! The kids had so much fun constructing the airplanes and testing them. It was awesome for me to hear them use vocabulary such as "variables" in their normal group conversations!" Click here to save 20% with a bundle including this resource and 2 more flight challenges.*****************************************************************************Be the first to know about my new discounts, freebies, and product launches:Click here to follow my store. Its that easy to receive email updates about Teachers Are Terrific!Thank you so much,Teachers Really are Terrific!
