STEM Playground

Elementary Science Competition Without Leaving Your Classroom

STEM Playground is a free virtual STEM competition designed to prepare 3rd thru 5th grade students for STEM competition using standards-aligned activities in a contest format.

Download activities to conduct with your class and upload your scores to our database to get instant feedback on class performance!

Registration for the 2017-2018 school year is underway!

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What We Do

Engaging Contests

Download our activities to conduct with your students and upload the results to compare your class’s scores to the scores of classes globally.

Aligned Content

Our activities include pertinent supplemental curriculum material that is aligned to National Standards.

Emphasis on Team

Your assessment scores are greatly affected by how well the team members work together, instilling in your students the value of teamwork.

Where We Are

STEM Playground began as a small pilot program for 10 schools but has grown over 500% in the last two years.

See our map to find participating schools around the world!

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Explore Our Activities

Teams will explore levers and balance through building a mobile.

Teams will construct an apparatus to transport as many AA batteries as possible across a span of 6 meters at one time.

Get To The Chopper!

Teams will make a paper helicopter and test its flight time.

Students will investigate how to slow an object’s speed as it travels down a ramp.

Bounce the Light

Students will bounce light off of mirrors to hit a target.

Tennis Ball Tower

Students teams will all use the same materials to build a tower that is both tall and strong.

Students will build and test a hovercraft.

Spelling Bee of Science

Students will better learn science vocabulary words, including their spelling.

Students will design and build a bridge that can hold a cup of marbles without breaking or collapsing.

Teams will design a barge and use aluminum foil to build it. After predicting how much cargo their barge will hold, they will test it.

Follow the Leader!

Each team will have a “Leader” and a “Follower.” The Leaders will examine a paper airplane and write a set of directions for constructing it. The Followers will follow the written instructions to reconstruct the object.

Soaring the Solar System

Teams will successfully identify and label as many solar system-based objects as possible in a 15-minute time frame.

Teams will successfully identify and label as many organelles in an animal cell as possible in a 15-minute time frame.

Half Hour Tower

Teams will construct the tallest tower possible from spaghetti sticks and miniature marshmallows in 30 minutes.

Teams will construct a rubber band-powered catapult and launch different-sized marshmallows at a stationary target.

Let's Get Elemental

Teams will successfully identify and label as many elements from the Periodic Table as possible within a 15-minute time frame.

Northrop Grumman Aircraft

Teams will construct a paper plane and then test it for distance.

The Sky is Falling

Teams will have 20 minutes to design and construct a parachute that will slow the descent of a golf ball as much as possible when dropped from a pre-determined height.

Teams will design and build paper darts and then test the darts by launching them from drinking straws.

School of Rocks

Teams will successfully identify and label as many rocks as possible within a 15-minute time frame.

Cloudy With a Chance of Science

Teams will successfully identify and label as many types of clouds as possible in a 15-minute time frame.

How We Align to Standards

STEM Playground designed its STEM activities and supporting curriculum material around you and your students, NOT Common Core standards. However, we understand the need for those of you in Common Core-participating states to meet English Language Arts and Math standards, even as you teach science.

So STEM Playground asked educational publisher Longbourn Editorial to correlate our current curriculum material to both Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards.

ngss

How Our Competition Works

STEM Playground’s activities are designed to be completed by teams of two students and will have measurable results which you can compare with other classes globally, nationally, or even within your own community or school.

While you can compare results from just one activity, you can also compete in the cumulative League Challenge by completing all 12 designated League Challenge activities.

Our Mission

STEM Playground prepares elementary students for team-based STEM competition through activities designed to create excitement about STEM at an early age while assessing and developing the character traits required for effective collaboration. Through our online virtual STEM tournament, teachers conduct simple, inexpensive science-based activities with their two-student teams, then upload their scores to compare with other teams and classes around the globe.

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