Looking to keep your students engaged until summer? Look no further than our collection of end-of-year STEM projects! Spanning a variety of topics and levels, these exciting activities will help your students continue learning and having fun while they wait for the school season to end.
Short on time? Grab a ready-to-go end-of-year STEM project now!
Animal Prosthetics
Get your students involved in the field of animal prosthetics with this project! Encourage them to think about ways to design prosthesis that could help disabled animals gain improved mobility. Talk through different designs and materials, then have them create models out of materials like foam or papier mâché. Challenge them to consider the advantages and disadvantages of each design they come up with, as well as how it might affect the comfort and ease of use by the animal using it.
Water Balloon Catapults
Get your students to put their engineering skills to the test with this water balloon catapult building activity. Give each team a few basic materials, including rubber bands, meter sticks, and clean recyclables and challenge them to come up with the best design for their catapult. Make sure to teach proper safety protocols before any water balloons start flying! Set up a competition between groups, then monitor from afar as they test the aim and strength of their creations.
DIY Fidget Spinners
This activity is perfect for those students that just can’t stay still and need something to occupy their hands. Kids love making their own toys, and fidget spinners are the perfect project for an ever-popular device. Provide skate bearings, popsicle sticks, and other household materials to get them started. Give teams creative freedom to mix up the design by adding markers, decorative tape, and stickers for decoration. Generate some friendly competition too – allow teams to race each other or see which spinner can spin the longest.
Bottle Rockets
Bottle rockets will teach students about forces and chemical reactions while they have a blast launching rockets! Have the kids design a rocket using a clean plastic bottle, popsicle sticks, and other household items. Now that they’re ready, have them fill the bottle with vinegar and baking soda and put a cork in the opening! They’ll need to experiment with different amounts of “rocket fuel” for different launch heights — and soon enough, everyone will be learning about physics without realizing it.
Space Needle Towers
Make some elaborate towers with your students! Have them break into small groups, and provide each group with a variety of items like toothpicks, Popsicle sticks, paper clips, and binder clips. Have them use their STEM skills to construct tall towers with the items they’ve been given — but each tower must be able to support a tennis ball at the top. It may sound easy — but it will take precision and good engineering to construct something of great height that is also able to support a weight at the top! See who can make the tallest space needle model by the end of your activity.
Looking for more support planning end-of-year STEM projects?
Check out these ready-to-go STEM challenges perfect for closing out your school year! With a week of engaging, student-centered activities, your students will have a special closeout to the year.
Each of the end-of-year STEM projects has:
- Printable, Google and Easel versions of the student activities and worksheets that guide students through the engineering design process
- Detailed lesson plans and slideshows for easy lesson facilitation
- Easy-to-use grading rubrics and assessments
- Flexible building materials, so you can use what you have on hand
- Printable certificates for student engineers
- Suggestions for building materials, distance learning, and differentiation
Grab one today to save your planning and prep time for all your other close-out tasks, while knowing your students will be learning and engaged in a fantastic end-of-year STEM project!
