STEM Challenge: Exploring the Surface

Challenge

Design Martian backpacks equipped with tools essential for exploring Mars’s diverse landscape. You’ll be exploring caves and mountains in search of water, life, and potentially, fossils!

Constraints and Success Criteria

• The backpack must include a minimum of three tools designed specifically for Martian exploration.
• The tools should focus on the Martian environment, aiding in the search for water, evidence of life, or fossils.
• The backpack, with all tools inside, must be wearable, emphasizing practicality and weight management.

Materials

You do not need any testers for this challenge.

Set Up

1. Prepare Materials: Ensure you have all the necessary materials ready beforehand and organize them so that they are easily accessible to students. Students should use no more than five of any one material per creation! For example, a student can use five straws and five pieces of paper, but not ten straws. If you provide aluminum foil, no more than one arm’s length piece for each student!
2. Set Up Testing Area: Create a designated area where students can test their backpack designs to ensure they can wear them comfortably and carry all the essential tools effectively.
3. Provide Guidelines and Constraints: Reiterate the challenge and the constraints to students as needed. Building time is 45 minutes!
4. Model the Design Process: Before students begin, demonstrate the design process by going through the steps yourself. Discuss how to brainstorm ideas, create prototypes, test them, and make iterations based on the results, as needed.
5. Encourage Collaboration: Foster a collaborative environment where students can work together in pairs. Encourage them to share ideas, help each other troubleshoot challenges, and provide constructive feedback throughout the process. But no groups of three!
6. Support Adaptation: Encourage students to embrace the mindset of adaptation and problem-solving. Help them see that setbacks and failures are opportunities to learn and make improvements. Guide them in identifying areas for adaptation and brainstorming alternative solutions.
7. Facilitate Reflection: Set aside time for students to reflect on their design process and decision-making. Ask questions that prompt them to think critically about their choices, challenges they faced, and what they learned from the experience. This reflection can be done individually, in pairs, or as a whole-class discussion.
8. Celebrate and Showcase: Celebrate students’ efforts and showcase their backpack designs. Provide a platform for them to explain their design rationale and how they envision their backpacks supporting the Martian exploration mission.

CASEL Discussion Questions

Five questions aligned to Responsible Decision Making — our focus CASEL competency for Module 3 —  for teachers to foster an engaging discussion and social-emotional learning