In short, I am busy: STEM challenge: What floats, what flies

• Program Goals
• Encourage kids to think about how and why things float and fly
• Encourage creative thinking and problem solving

Project: Making Boats

• Styrofoam plates and bowls
• Ribbon, straws
• Paper, foil, wax paper, tape, markers

Supplies

• 3 plastic kiddie pools filled with water
• styrofoam plates, popsicle sticks, cardstock (scratch paper), duct tape, scissors
• bubbles, sidewalk chalk

Project: Making paper airplanes

• Paper
• Rulers, pencils, scissors
• Tape, Foil, wax paper, rubber bands, popsicle sticks
• Ladder and masking tape for the floor
• Paper airplane books

Evaluation

• 7-21-16
• Attendance: 31
• Notes: I did not have styrofoam or straws and decided to just use what we had in the cupboard. It was a super hot day and I did not expect a ton of people.
• 6-25-15
• Attendance: 45
• Notes: I threw a bunch of the plastic balls in the pools and that was fun. The styrofoam plates are not as exciting, because they're guaranteed to float, but we weren't feeling super creative today anyways.
• 10-16-14 (combined with force and motion)
• Attendance: 18
• Notes: I could use a more sturdy ladder.
• 2014
• Attendance: 40
• Notes for the future: This is actually two programs and normally there would be an experimental portion to go with each project, but I did a special summer combination and dropped those portions. I had an idea right after we started and put tape lines and targets on the floor in front of the ladder we were testing the airplanes from and that was really good - got the kids talking/working on how to make the planes fly in different directions.

• 6-27-14: This is the first of my last two We Explore playgroups. I'm cutting back on programs and these are fun, but not necessary. I cut way down on the amount of things we had to make boats out of, didn't try to do the folding paper boats (which didn't work) and everything was outside, since we had a senior movie being shown in the Storyroom.
• 6-14-13: I didn't finish planning this until right before we did it, so it ended up being kind of haphazard. Basically I put out a bunch of books, a bunch of supplies, and was hoping that people would make boats, decorate them, and take them outside to float. Then they could figure out which ones floated better and try different designs. 35 people came and everyone loved it, but some samples would have been better. The best were the plates the kids covered in foil and then taped on popsicle stick masts and sails.