LibGuides: Makerspace: STEM/STEAM

Experiments & Makerspace

Tinker Lab
This blog has process art, makerspaces, tinkering, monthly art challenges, among many other categories.
STEAMsational: STEAM activities for kids
Includes thematic sets of activities for science, technology, engineering, math, art/design, and Spring STEM.
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory - activities database
Bring the wonder of space to your students. Explore our universe of science, technology, engineering and math activities and resources.
Nepris
Nepris is here to help teachers and students affected by school closures. Now through April we are opening our Live Virtual Industry Chats and Video Library to everyone to help students stay engaged.
PictureSTEM
The PictureSTEM Project includes instructional units for K-2 classrooms that use an engineering challenge and picture books as supports for learning science, mathematics, engineering, computational thinking, and reading.
OK Go Sandbox
OK Go Sandbox is an online resource for educators that uses OK Go’s music videos as starting points for integrated guided inquiry challenges allowing students to explore various STEAM concepts.
TeachEngineering: STEM Curriculum for K-12
Check out the "At-Home Activities", or browse curriculum for specific projects to tackle.
UL Xplorlabs
UL Xplorlabs is an educational platform designed to encourage students to “solve through science.” It is especially focused on engaging middle-school students during a time in their educational lives when interest in science is shown to decrease dramatically. Through interactive videos, instructional experiences, hands-on classroom activities and creative classroom challenges, this free, STEM-focused experience:
SciGirls Connect
Under the Resources tab, you will find Earth & space, engineering & design, health, life & environment, physical science, and technology.
BabbleDabbleDo - connecting through creativity
Art, science, engineering, and design for kids!
Microsoft Education Hacking STEM Library
Browse our library for downloadable, hands-on, teacher-tested projects and activities that use everyday materials to make STEM affordable, accessible, and fun for everyone.
Wonderopolis
Each day, a new "wonder" is posted to learn or experiment and answer. They also have all past posts cataloged, and searchable by topic, such as science, math, social studies, language arts, technology, and arts & culture.
Exploring Options for Virtual Dissection
Steve Spangler Facebook page
Steve Spangler is a best-selling author, educator and Emmy award-winning television host who finds the most creative ways to make science fun.
Piedmont Environmental Alliance - 15th annual Earth Day Fair (now virtual!)
You can always look at the On Demand Videos hyperlink on the right-hand menu.
14 Day Activity Challenge for fun activities for kid
Fun with Mama - science activities

Computer Coding & Math

Learn to Code with el Chavo
Play an online game for free to learn how to code!
Pencil Code Gym
Learn professional programming languages using an editor that lets you work in either blocks or text. Create art, music, games, and stories. Or invent a program that will change the world.
Blockly.Games
Blockly Games is a series of educational games that teach programming. It is designed for children who have not had prior experience with computer programming. By the end of these games, players are ready to use conventional text-based languages.
Google Ngrams
Have fun with the Google Books archive! Watch the TedTalk on Google Ngrams to learn more (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l4cA8zSreQ)
Grasshopper
Learn with fun, quick lessons on your phone that teach you to write real JavaScript. Move through progressively challenging levels as you develop your abilities.
Minecraft Hour of Code Tutorials
Many languages | Modern browsers and tablets | Grades 2+
Don't have Internet? Download the offline version of Minecraft Adventurer.
Girls Who Code - Code at Home
We know that parents, educators, and girls are looking for support and connection during these challenging times. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has led to school closures and significant disruption to daily life, Girls Who Code is making CS educational activities available for download free of charge, to anyone who wants to access them.
We will release activities weekly — some online, some offline, of varying levels of difficulty—over the course of the next few months. Each activity will include a feature of a woman in tech who pioneered innovative technology.
Virtual Tech Camps: Learn from home
Experience the magic of camp at home. Right now.
Amidst school closures and social distancing, our online courses are the perfect way to sharpen your tech skills from the comfort of home. Choose from Virtual Tech Camps or Online Private Lessons. With the highest quality remote instruction on the planet, you’ll unlock your brilliance.

Start learning today, from anywhere in the world.
Washington University's Programming and Computing Activities for Kids
There are many fun activities online that can help you learn more about computing, including how to program. Try these at home or suggest them for use in your school!
Raspberry Pi free online coding - alphabetical list of projects (9 pages!)
Here are some great projects that will help you start writing code and get going with digital making. You can sort them by topic (e.g.animals, robots, books), hardware (e.g. 3D printer), software (e.g. CSS, Python, Blender), and level (e.g. creator, builder, developer, maker).
Raspberry Pi - Build a Robot project
What you will make:
Use CSS to position robot parts to assemble your own robot.
Raspberry Pi - Talk Like a Pirate
What you will make:
In this resource you will create a web page which can translate normal English text into pirate speak using jQuery and regular expressions.
Google - Hour of Code - Create Your Own Google Logo (grades 2+)
Use your creativity and imagination to bring the Google logo to life using code. Make the letters dance, tell a story or create a game. With Scratch and CS First, anyone can become a designer and programmer for the day!

Make Your Own Games

The Game Crafter
Shop previously made games, upgrade a game, or design your own game!
more...less...
The Game Crafter (TGC) is the world’s first web-to-print game publishing company and offers a print on demand game publishing service. TGC empowers game designers around the world by allowing them to make a board game, card game, and custom playing cards through a website. Using the latest web technology, TGC developed an online publishing platform that simplifies the design, manufacturing, and retail processes related to tabletop games.
Libby's Outdoor Maintenance Facebook page
Stuck in quarantine with the kiddos? Looking for things to keep them out of your hair? Here are some activities to keep them busy!

See our Thematic Activities page

Imagine Your Story - Online Single-Player Building Games: PreK to First Grade

PBS Kids - Cat in the Hat - Games
Includes inventions and building, sorting, bridges, slides, Outer Space, sound, an arcade, corn maze, cleaning up, camping, marble coaster, beavers, hermit crabs, seahorse, deep sea, and shapes!
PBS Kids - Lord of the Crumbs
PBS Kids - Sesame Street Story Book Builder
PBS Kids - Magical Shape Hunt
PBS Kids - Pinkcredible Story Maker
Disney Jr - Goldie & Bear Fairy Tale Forest Adventures Game
Goldie and Bear go to Fairy Tale Adventures! They want to visit their friends - the Frog King, the Wolf, the Red Cap, the Three Bears, the Three Pigs, Humpty Dumpty and Jack from Jack and the Magic Beans - and help them to overcome many troubles. Will you visit these fairy tales together with Goldie and Bear!

Imagine Your Story - Online Single-Player Building Games: Elementary & Middle School Age

Raspberry Pi - Storytime
What you will make: You will use Python to create a program that generates a random story, based on what the user types in.

The story is built within the Raspberry Pi project page, step by step. You can create an account to save it and return later and continue working.
Raspberry Pi - Dancing Unicorns and Rainbows
What you will make:
You will use Scratch to connect a rainbow of LEDs to a unicorn sprite, and then make the unicorn dance to the rhythm of the rainbow.
Raspberry Pi - Pride and Prejudice for Zombies
The world has been overrun with zombies, and the only thing they like doing more than eating brains is reading about eating brains. Your mission is to create some literature for the zombies to read, in order to keep them distracted and save your life.
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What you will make: You’ll be turning Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice into a version more interesting to zombies.
Raspberry Pi - Shakespearean Insult Generator
What you will make: Ever been lost for words? In this resource you will write a Python script to generate insults, Elizabethan-style.
Raspberry Pi - Scary 'spot the difference' shareable creation!
You are going to create a Spot the Difference game with a big surprise, to scare all your friends.
Raspberry Pi - Where's Zombie?
Use the GPS on your phone to make an outdoor zombie apocalypse game you can play with your friends. Collect the supplies to power up, but avoid the zombies!
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What you will make:
You will make a game that you can play outside using your mobile phone’s GPS capabilities. Find the power-ups and avoid the zombies!
Raspberry Pi - Zombie apocalypse survival map
Create a real map of your local area and mark on it the locations of supplies, secret bases, and even the zombies themselves!
Code Combat
CodeCombat
Our original coding game. Recommended for parents, individuals, educators, and students who want to experience one of the most-loved coding games in the world.

Ozaria
An adventure game and Computer Science program where students master the lost magic of coding to save their world. Recommended for educators and students.
Code.org - Hour of Code - Build a Star Wars Galaxy (Grades 2+)
Grades 2+
LEGO - Last Jedi 360 Experience
Take part in a fully immersive 360-degree experience as you build the battle and take part in a unique LEGO® adventure that is set in the same time and location of Star Wars “The Last Jedi”. Create vehicles from the movie and watch them do battle as both Resistance and First Order try to seize control.
Code.org - Hour of Code - Minecraft Hero
Code.org - Hour of Code - The Grinch: Saving Christmas with Code (grades 2-8)
Learn to program drones and a high tech sleigh with coding magic to capture presents and navigate down the mountain to return Christmas to Whoville.
Kano - Hour of Code - Harry Potter: Learn to Code and Make Magic (grades 2-8)
Learn to code and make magic on screen with creative challenges. Make feathers fly and fire flow, compose music, and more.
Code.org - Hour of Code - Frozen (grades 2+)
Let's use code to join Anna and Elsa as they explore the magic and beauty of ice. You will create snowflakes and patterns as you ice-skate and make a winter wonderland that you can then share with your friends!
Code.org - Hour of Code - Disney Infinity (grades 2-8, multiple languages)
Use Play Lab to create a story or game starring Disney Infinity characters.
Google - Hour of Code - Code Your Superhero (grades 2-8, Spanish and English)
Turn an everyday hero from your life or community into a superhero by programming them to fly over buildings, spin, work with a sidekick, and score points by touching objects in a game. In Code Your Hero, show off your hero's special powers and your own creativity with CS First and Scratch.
Tynker - Hour of Code - Learn to Code with Monster High (grades 2-8)
Monster High is hosting a scavenger hunt! Solve coding puzzles with drag-and-drop blocks to help Frankie, Draculaura, Clawdeen, Cleo, and Ghoulia. Avoid obstacles and find all the school crests as you quest through the halls of Monster High. Then program your own dance party music video with the ghouls and share it with friends.
Code Avengers - Hour of Code - Security Siege
Join Niko and Sakura on their virtual reality journey to Tubrosos Castle. Learn what it's like to be a gray hat hacker by helping the wizard elf, Cyrena find the Crown of Knowledge. You will expose the poor security systems used at the castle and learn how to avoid becoming the victim of a scam.
Code Avengers - Hour of Code - Shield Design Showdown (grades 2-8)
It's the summer holidays and Alex, her family, and Lonnie are going on holiday to Finland. Alex's older brother Reuben is creating an app about shield blazonry and shows Alex and Lonnie how to use it. Join them as they learn how to sequence blocks to design some amazing shields of their own!
Programming Hero: Coding Just Got Fun (beta) app (grades 2+)
Build your own game
All Can Code - Run Marco! (grades 2-8, multiple languages offered)
Students play an adventure game based on an original story. They guide Marco - the main character - through each level by giving him step-by-step instructions in the form of the visual programming language used by the Hour of Code. They get introduced to sequencing commands, iteration and conditions without even noticing it.
Vidcode - Hour of Code - Map Your Community (grades 6+)
Collect and analyze data for community engagement, by coding your own community map!