Looking for St. Patrick’s Day activities that your students will love but are more than just a craft or activity to pass the time? These St. Patrick’s STEM Challenges (or STEAM Challenges) will keep your students engaged in brain-busting work disguised as fun!
From this hub page, you will find everything you need to know about all five St. Patrick’s Day STEM challenges: links to resources, blog posts, video walk-throughs, and teacher feedback on each resource.
St. Patrick’s Day STEM Challenge Basics:
Students work in partners or groups against criteria & constraints lists to design and build St. Paddy’s Day themed items using science, technology, engineering, and math skills to complete the tasks and extensions. Modification suggestions are included to make these challenges engaging and productive for students in grades 2 – 8.
For leprechauns, life is a constant struggle to protect their pot of gold from treasure hunters and keep from getting caught themselves!
Working against criteria & constraints individually or in partners/groups, students will design and build one or more devices to help a leprechaun guard his pot of gold from thieves.
As with all my challenges, modifications are included to make it appropriate for grades 2-8. More details can be found in resource, blog, and video linked below the teacher feedback.
Working against criteria & constraints individually or in partners/groups, students will design and build one or more devices to transfer leprechaun gold from his pot to their own.
As with all my challenges, modifications are included to make it appropriate for grades 2-8. More details can be found in resource, blog, and video linked below the teacher feedback.
You may know that leprechauns have the ability to grant three wishes to human captors in exchange for their freedom, but capturing leprechauns is trickier than it sounds!
Working in groups against criteria & constraints and equipped with a Leprechaun Lore List, students will design and build a device to lure and safely capture a leprechaun.
As with all my challenges, modifications are included to make it appropriate for grades 2-8. More details can be found in resource, blog, and video linked below the teacher feedback.
Individually or in partners/groups, students will design and build a device to rid Ireland of snakes as quickly and safely as possible.
– Snakes (10 – 20) will be spread over a map of Ireland (three map options are provided). Student devices must lift snakes from Ireland and drop them in the surrounding ocean.
As with all my challenges, modifications are included to make it appropriate for grades 2-8. More details can be found in resource, blog, and video linked below the teacher feedback.
Pennies found face up, horseshoes, and four-leaf clovers have long been symbols of luck. This challenge combines an element of each famous symbol. Originally conceived as an introduction to probability, in this challenge, students “make” their own luck by creating a four-leaf frisbee designed to always land face-up. A horseshoe-like game called four-leaf frisbee was added as an extension for a little extra St. Patrick’s Day fun.
– Working with a partner, students each design a four-leaf frisbee that will always land face-up. Students compare their results with a coin-flip test to measure the success of their designs.
– In four-leaf frisbee, partner teams test their skill and luck in a game played similarly to horseshoes, receiving points when their four-leaf frisbee designs land on a pot of gold, heads up, or within 6 in. of the gold.
– Design results are based on the heads-up probability of the frisbee design; it isn’t necessary to play the game, though it is a lot of fun!
As with all my challenges, modifications are included to make it appropriate for grades 2-8. More details can be found in resource, blog, and video linked below the teacher feedback.
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