Moon Crater STEM Challenge: Hands-On Team Design Activity for Elementary & Middle School

lesson overview

This engaging STEM challenge is a fun way to incorporate the engineering design process into your classroom or afterschool program! Students use the engineering design process and explore the forces of motion to place a ball in a cup at the center of a 6 foot diameter circle without entering the circle. This challenge represents placing a NASA rover into the middle of the Apollo lunar crater for exploration as a potential human colony site. This challenge is great for a space exploration unit or learning about the moon. 

This hands-on activity is an engaging design challenge that allows students to work in teams, apply the engineering design process, and connect math topics to real-world applications. As a student-driven assignment, the purpose of the teacher is to act as a facilitator. You will provide the structure to the project, but students will take an active role in designing and building a device to deposit a rover into the lunar crater. Our students have loved this activity, and we know yours will too! 

• Detailed teachers guide with links to resources

• Student handouts to guide them through the design process

• Student recording sheet for each step of the process

• Math connection problems including ratios and geometry (circles, cylinders)

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