Harrison Park Elementary School conducts monthly STEAM projects called “Junk Box Wars.”
STEAM activities incorporate science, technology, engineering, art, and math into one project. The Junk Box Wars projects encourage students to use their scientific knowledge to create and design a device. Students in grades kindergarten through fifth grade work with a partner and are given a design challenge and a bag of “junk” to create a device that solves a specified task.
April’s challenge was called Bucket Towers. Teammates had to build a tower and attach a hanging bucket. The tower that could sustain the most stones in the bucket won. To create their towers, students were given 2 index cards, 2 pieces of paper, 4 candy sticks, 8 popsicle sticks, 8 straws, 2 rubber bands, 8 pipe cleaners, 2 paper clips, 2 bottle caps, 1 lump of clay, 1 roll of masking tape, and 1 small cup.