Name Tag Stem Challenge- Back to School

This fun activity was featured in Good Housekeeping. Want to dive right into STEM on day 1? Give students this back to school Name Tag Challenge. For this activity, focus on and evaluate the engineering design process by observing how the students work through the criteria and use the tools to problem solve, use critical thinking skills, create & design, redesign, and evaluate. It’s really just a fun way to get to know students during the first week of school BEFORE delving into STEM standards.

This activity is so much fun and you will immediately begin to tell who can do this with ease, who gets frustrated, who redesigns over and over again, and who just gives up! It definitely helps teachers and students remember student names on day 1, plus gives you a quick informal assessment of students early on.

As a class, we do a classroom museum walk when all are finished and give thoughtful comments or suggestions to each student’s work (optional).

*BONUS: CREATE YOUR OWN! If you would like to change the criteria or materials, you can create your own challenge for your students. Your students can even create the challenge too. Change it up and have fun with it.

This is a digital download in PowerPoint.