Stories | December 22, 2017 | Read Time: 4 minutes
Keeping Kids' Minds Active with STEM Projects
Keeping the kids entertained with educational content can often be a struggle, especially during school breaks. And while school may not be in session, their curious brains are still asking how and why.
So, we’ve put together a list of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) activities perfect for kids in K-6 grades using things you have around the house or can easily get with a quick trip to the store.
Edible Soil–Make snack time educational! Healthy soil is a vital resource and very important to farmers. Learn about the different layers of soil and how each layer works by making a soil profile model and a tasty snack at the same time!
For this project, you’ll need:
- Clear plastic cup
- Zip top plastic bag
- Meat tenderizer or rolling pin or mortar and pestle
- Snack foods to represent each part of your soil profile – for example:
- Different shapes and colors of sprinkles as organic matter and microbes
- Gummy worms as decomposers
- Dark cookies as topsoil
- Light cookies as subsoil
- Hard chocolate candies as bedrock
Garden in a Glove—Through Garden in a Glove, young scientists will be able to make observations on the characteristics and life cycle of plants. You’ll follow your plants over time as they grow from seedlings. Once your seedlings begin to grow, you can transfer them into larger cups or even your garden. This activity gives you and your young scientists the opportunity to learn what seeds need to germinate, grow, and produce fruit or vegetables.
For this project, you’ll need:
- Water
- 10 Cotton balls
- 1 Clear plastic glove
- Seeds
- Marker
- Pipe cleaner
Build Your Own Bee House—We have bees to thank for a lot of the food we eat. These small insects play a large part in pollinating the world’s crops. With this project, you can build your very own bee house and observe which native bees, like Mason Bees, come to visit.
For this project, you’ll need:
- Sheets of paper in varying thicknesses
- Scissors
- 5/16” dowel rod or pencil
- Masking tape
- Duct / heavy tape
- Empty oatmeal canister, milk carton, coffee can, or other straight sided, water resistant container
Gene Bracelet—DNA is the code of life. Learn about the genetic traits that make you similar and different from those around you by creating a gene bracelet and comparing it to your friends and family.
For this project, you’ll need:
- Yarn
- Yarn threaders
- Scissors
- Variety of colored beads
- Gold beads
Advanced experiment: Ecosystem in a Bottle—In agriculture, each ecosystem provides the soil, water, light and warmth a seed needs to germinate and thrive. This activity allows you and your young scientists to explore the effects–they can have on their environment. This project includes separate parent and kid plans as well as critical thinking questions to stimulate observations in the Ecosystem in a Bottle experiment.
For this project, you’ll need:
- Scissors
- Marker
- Seeds
- Caps
- Two 2-liter bottles
- Water
- Soil
- Wicks
- Ruler
- Drill
- Safety glasses
- Vice grips
Demonstration: The Apple as the Earth—Science helps us understand things and helps us to find new and creative ways to solve the challenges our world faces, including the conservation of natural resources. To visualize this, we use our own imaginations and an apple to see why producing fuel, food and fiber sustainability and through the adoption of technology and good agronomic practices is an important. This is not only a great project to help learn about the importance of science in finding new ways to conserve natural resources but it can also be used as an opportunity to learn about fractions.
For this project, you’ll need:
- Apple
- Knife
- Cutting board
Bonus:
Modern Agriculture Coloring Pages—Everyone loves to color and these modern ag coloring pages are sure to capture your budding artist’s eye. Let their imaginations run wild with the patterns and see where their creativity takes them, or show them where the images come from and see their interpretations. Either way, bust out the colored pencils and join in the fun too!