Winter can be a challenging, yet exciting time of year. From holiday parties and dances to field trips and concert performances, there always seems to be something going on. Not to mention, the abundance of students being absent due to club trips, family holiday plans, etc. can put a damper on your lesson plans. Winter STEM challenges can be a great way to engage students during a time when their minds are elsewhere! There are so many engineering design challenges that you can put a winter twist on in order to get students creating, problem-solving, and communicating this season. Check out some of our favorite ideas below!

Igloo 

Design and build a hollow igloo that is dome shaped and contains a single entrance, using only toothpicks and marshmallows! This is a great challenge that can be customized to meet a variety of different design criteria and constraints. You can give students requirements in terms of the size of the igloo, the size of the opening, the amount of marshmallows and toothpicks provided, whether or not the igloo needs to have a base, a standard item that must fit inside each students’ igloo (such as a figurine or common classroom object), etc.

Another fun modification is to have students build their igloos out of sugar cubes and water! The igloo should have design criteria that includes being able to be moved in one piece from their desk to a specific location. Think of the showstopper challenge in The Great British Baking Show! You’ll enjoy watching students get creative and activate their problem-solving skills as they strike a balance between having too much water and not enough. 

Shovel

Go high-tech or low-tech for this activity! Students must create a shovel that can pick up the most amount of “snow” in a single scoop (or timed duration). You can decide the provided materials that will challenge students even further. For example, perhaps students are provided with unlimited copy paper and only 4 pieces of tape or the shovel can only be supported and used with one hand. These small tasks or challenges will help students think outside the box. In terms of the “snow,” this can be customized too. To make the task more difficult, the “snow” could be rice or beads. Other options include cotton balls, marshmallows, magic snow, etc. 

Candy cane cup stacking

Cup stacking seems pretty straightforward, right? What happens when students can’t use their hands to do so? In this challenge, students will attempt to stack the tallest standing structure using only candy canes to move the cups. Choose if students will have access to two candy canes or only one, and whether or not they will use mini or full-sized candy canes. The material of the cup can also be a tremendous factor. Will students use plastic cups that are more slippery, or paper cups which tend to be more stable? There are so many different ways that you can modify this challenge. Plus, if your students are excelling at this challenge and require a more difficult one, you can even restrict them to holding the candy canes with only one hand! 

Snowball fight

Another classic and loved engineering challenge is having students construct catapults! If you haven’t already tasked students with this engineering challenge, consider trying it out this winter. You can choose to use whatever consumable materials you want, including popsicle sticks, plastic utensils, toothpicks, and even candy canes or plastic icicles! In terms of what to use as a snowball, we recommend soft objects like pom poms or mini marshmallows. You can also have students try and hit a target, perhaps a snowman they’ve designed and created themselves, or they can have a competition to see which snowballs go the farthest. 

This is just a small list of many possible winter STEAM challenges for the classroom. There are so many ways to help students practice their engineering skills with a winter twist, all you have to do is get creative! 

Make sure to check out our accompanying OTIS course, Festive STEAM Challenges for Elementary Classrooms, for more challenge ideas as well as our Festive Winter STEAM Challenge Cards from our Edu Resources section to present the challenges in a creative way!

Stay warm and cozy!

For more tips, tricks, and tools for teaching in and out of the classroom, check out more content on the Teq Talk blog or our YouTube channels OTIS for educators and Tequipment.

We also offer virtual professional development, training, and support with OTIS for educators. Explore the technology and strategies that spark student success — no matter where teaching or learning are happening!

Follow us on social:

  edteq             OTIS4educators  |  Teq Products  |  iBlocks           OTIS4educators  |  MyTeq          Teq