STEM Resources

The Mark Twain Earth and Space Science book challenges students to work together while solving real-world problems.

STEM Labs for Earth and Space Science for sixth–eighth grades provides 26 integrated labs that cover the topics of:

• geology
• oceanography
• meteorology
• astronomy

The integrated labs encourage students to apply scientific inquiry, content knowledge, and technological design.

STEM success requires creativity, communication, and collaboration. Mark Twain's Earth and Space Science workbook for middle school explains STEM education concepts and provides materials for instruction and assessment. Each lab incorporates the following components:

• creativity
• teamwork
• communication
• critical thinking

From supplemental books to classroom décor, Mark Twain Media Publishing Company specializes in providing the very best products for middle-grade and upper-grade classrooms. Designed by leading educators, the product line covers a range of subjects, including language arts, fine arts, government, history, social studies, math, science, and character.

How about making a car that runs on air!

Introduce your child to the power of jet propulsion and thrust with Smartivity Super Duper Propulsion Car S.T.E.M. Educational D.I.Y. Toy Kit. A redesign of our most popular activity project in the 6+ age-group, the Super Duper Propulsion car now comes with extendible tracks and additional learnings about friction and gradients.

Once assembled, children can lay out the tracks they have build and change the length of the track as they please. The tracks have a flat element and an adjustable gradient/slope element. Using the breakers on the flat tracks, children learn the concept of friction and braking. While by changing the notches of the adjustable gradient children understand the variation in power required to climb an incline.

This exploratory and playful learning activity is bound to keep your child engaged for a long time!

Science, technology, engineering, art, and math work together to make learning fun in these STEAM lessons!

Perfect for Makerspace!

This fourth grade teacher resource book includes:

• A year's worth of teacher lesson plans
• STEAM design challenges that turn elementary students into inventors
• Easy-to-follow lesson format (with standards identified for each lesson)
• Classroom-tested lessons

The STEAM Design Challenges in this book follow engineering practices to teach students in Grade 4 to solve a problem by designing, creating, and justifying their designs. They also allow art to support and enhance the learning of science and math while the engineering process is followed.

These engaging STEAM lessons:

• Integrate the Next Generation Science Standards and national standards from other disciplines
• Enhance learning across various disciplines
• Facilitate students in collaborating to solve real-world scenarios
• Promote critical thinking, analytical thinking, and reflective thinking
• Incorporate the Five Es Instructional Model (engage, explore, explain, elaborate, evaluate)
• Are classroom tested

Engineering Design Process
The lessons in this book are intended to support the engineering design process in which teachers become a facilitator by encouraging and guiding students to work as a team to find a creative solution to a real-world problem without providing step-by-step instructions. Students are inspired to act as scientists and engineers through the use of sketches, diagrams, mathematical relationships, and literacy connections. By creating their very own models and products based on background information from their studies, students are immediately engaged through a meaningful, rewarding lesson.

More about the lessons
Each lesson begins by presenting students with a design challenge scenario in order to immediately excite students with a real-world situation that they are on a mission to solve. Students are then given a dilemma, mission, and blueprint design sheet and are asked to collaborate with team members to create several prototypes. Students present their prototypes to their teacher, construct their design, test their design, engage in a class discussion about their design, and then modify their design. Finally, teams create a justification piece in order to sell their new prototype (ex. persuasive letter, video, advertisement etc.).

About the Authors
The Steam Dreamers, a group of four classroom teachers, desired to create more interactive learning environments and science classrooms through student-centered problem-solving lessons. They created this collection of cross-curricular design challenge lessons to provide teachers and students with real-world scenarios that are driven by core learning standards and enriched through the inclusion of literacy and the arts.

We have mashed-up a marble run and a pool table to design the Smartivity Roller Coaster Marble Slide S.T.E.M. Educational D.I.Y. Toy kit. This project is based on the fundamentals of gravity, centrifugal force and banking. The kit contains all the elements needed to assemble the Roller Coaster Marble Slide.

A mix of slider game and pool table, this project is loads of fun to build and play. Once built, a kid can raise marbles along the wheel, and release them. As the marble slides down the track, they can aim the marble with the help of levers on the two sides. On the marble-pool part of the game, kids can place marbles, in such a way that the striker marble coming from the slide track hits them and the strike sends them in the corner or side pockets