Fairy Tale STEM Challenges: Fun, Literature-based Math and Engineering | 7th Primary School of Thebes Greece

What’s a Fairy Tale STEM?

It’s science, technology, engineering, and math-based solutions that help famous fairy tale characters solve their fairy tale problems! In other words, it’s kids’ opportunity to step into action and use their awesome STEM skills! The premise is simple – every fairy tale is based on a problem or a series of problems. So, fairy tale STEM is an invitation for kids to use their superior modern world knowledge, critical and problem-solving skills, and the supplies from around the house/school to help them conquer fairy tale world problems. STEM Tales are a way to integrate literacy and STEM/STEAM activities. The stories engage the kids, and as they read through the story they are seamlessly led through the Engineering Design Process. The challenge for the etwinners is based on the fairy tale “Jack and the Beanstalk”. In this engineering challenge, students constructed a parachute to help Jack escape the giant using everyday household and classroom items to complete this project. Students were allowed to choose things from the recycling materials like shopping bags, paper napkins, large and small coffee filters, balloοns, yarn etc. Students created their parachute and took them to the balcony to test them. Each team was allowed to drop their parachute 3 times so each team member had the opportunity to test it. Each drop was timed to see how long it took to reach the floor. It took Team 2's parachute over 4 seconds to reach the floor, so they were the big winners. The teams were even allowed to take their parachutes back to the drawing board to make adjustments to see if they could slow Jack down even more.. This activity was fun and educational. It encourages critical thinking and scientific reasoning skills, as well as, problem solving and teamwork.
https://youtu.be/_5bt-SvQ_HA