Simple Machines STEM Challenges | Paper and Digital

Use these simple machine STEM tasks that can be prepped in minutes. Your students will develop problem-solving skills while demonstrating their knowledge of pulleys, levers, wedges, screws, gears, rollers, inclined planes, wheels, and axles.

This resource is part of our Simple Machines Unit.

This hands-on resource includes:

• more than fifteen tasks that use simple machines. They challenge students to plan and work through the design process to build something that works.
• suggestions for setting up your classroom for efficiency.
• suggestions to modify for different learner needs.
• suggestions to assess learning including rubrics, checklists, and self-assessment pages.
• student task pages.
• student planning pages for working in a group or individually.
• a list of possible materials that can be used with suggestions for substitutions of everyday items.
• suggestions for solving each task (teacher background knowledge) along with photos of student examples.
• a digital version that uses Google Slides. There is loose text next to the slides that can be read by your assistive technology tools. You will need to open the resource PDF to find the digital link.
  

Answer keys are not included, as the whole point of these challenges is to work through problems with divergent thinking.

Students should have a basic understanding of the vocabulary of simple machines to complete the majority of these challenges. They were designed and tested with fourth graders. Thank you to our guinea pigs all over Alberta.

Suggested materials: grooved wheels, thread spools, sewing bobbins, yarn or string, a rod or hook in a doorway, cardboard, chopsticks, straws, stir sticks, bottle caps, lids, bottle caps, glue sticks, hot glue/glue gun, tape, paper clips, metal fasters, cylindrical shaped objects all of the same size, wooden stir sticks, elastic bands, scrap paper, strong scissors, paper towel rolls, binders, boxes, something to roll up and down the ramp (like a toy car), marshmallows, toothpicks and any other materials you can find!

This resource supports science concepts from these provinces and territories:

• Saskatchewan: FM5.1 Analyze the effects of...mechanical forces... Grade 4
• British Columbia and Yukon Territory: Simple Machines and their Forces Grade 5
• Manitoba: Forces and Simple Machines Grade 5
• any upper elementary or middle school science unit about simple machines

Do you teach science in Alberta? We have science units for you!

• Learn how we're adjusting resources to align with the new science curriculum in Alberta.
• Grade 3 Full Year of Lessons and Activities
• Grade 4 Full Year of Lessons and Activities
• Grade 5 Full Year of Lessons and Activities
• Grade 6 Full Year of Lessons and Activities

Do you teach science in another region? 

• Waste in Our World Unit
• Light and Shadow Unit
• Plant Growth Unit
• Simple Machines Unit
• Weather Unit
• Wetland Ecosystems Unit
• Electricity and Magnetism Unit
• Chemistry Unit
• Astronomy Unit
• Human Body Systems

Ninja Note: This file is a PDF and requires printing or copying the digital file. To use the digital version click on the link inside the PDF.

Have a question? Before contacting us, check our Frequently Asked Questions page.