By Megan Peralez
The Problem
Legos are a very good analogy for how I feel about the current state of Hands-on Activities. The worst thing you can do to Legos is put them all in a storage tub. How is anybody supposed to play with Legos when every type is all mixed in a huge heaping pile? Talk about too exhausting to even get started. That feeling of exhaustion inevitably overcomes me every time I start to search for new STEM activities to change up a lesson. I don’t believe I’m the only one: Pinterest is nearly impossible to weed through cheap experiments, much less get me to the original poster of the activity; meanwhile, hands-on activity books are a huge gamble, once you’ve read 5 books containing “50 best experiments”, the chances of finding a book with even 3 new experiments gets slimmer and slimmer.
One time saver is at least most of these posts or books separate activities into two main categories: grade level or topic. Sorting by grade level is largely unhelpful. If I really want to teach a concept and I like the hands-on activity, I’m going to adjust the format of the activity so it works for my students’ grade level. Organizing activities by topic can be more helpful, but I don’t always care about the topic. If I want students to have experience making a science fair project, they can pick any topic, but not all Hands-on Activities are formatted to be science fair projects. Luckily, this is yet another way we can sort through the Hands-on Activities, we can google science fair projects and have those types of activities separated out, but why not the rest? The better question is, what functions separate the rest of the hands-on activities from each other?
The Solution
This conundrum has been eating at me for nearly half a year, but I finally figured out how to divide the activities into subtypes using two broad categories: who controls the end result of the activity and the purpose of the activity. With these two dividers, we can key out all different types of Hands-on Activities in the table I created below.
Figure 1. Chart of Hands-on Activities
The top row filters the amount of control the student has in the end results: has it all been decided by the teacher, can the students make choices, or is all of it unknown to even the teacher? The column to the left breaks down the purpose from the students' perspective: are the students being asked to accomplish a goal, solve a problem, challenge their abilities, or learn a subject? With these two ways to separate out activities, we see Hands-On Activities can fit into a possible 12 categories. For the rest of this article, I will refer to Hands-On Activities as HOAs.
To clarify, the purpose of this article isn't to help you google search. Unfortunately, people are not great online and happen to use terms interchangeably. Understanding the difference using the table above, will make it easier to categorize the activities for yourself and make analyzing lesson plans much faster.
Subject-Oriented
The main point of a subject-oriented lesson is to teach a specific topic. The goal of this type is often to teach specific academic knowledge, but it also can be used to inspire interest in the general subject or increase the relevance of the topic to one's life. The three subject-oriented types are Demonstration, Experiment, and Activity.
Pros of this Method:
Subject-oriented lessons are easy to find once you have decided on a specific topic you want to teach.
Many teachers build their lessons based on the subject, so connecting it to HOA is straightforward.
Subject oriented a good way to teach a subject
Critiques of this method:
Browsing by subject can still leave you with lots of experiments to sort.
There's more to a hands-on activity than just the subject itself
Subjects can be cross-curricular but largely are not.
Demonstration
Demonstrations are used to explain or prove a point, most often done by the teachers themselves in a lecture, as a part of large assembly shows, and the most common type of ‘science experiment’ seen on TikTok. They have an expected outcome and because of this are the most rigid of all types of hands-on activities, if the experiment doesn’t go right, it has failed. Elephant toothpaste is a good example of a demonstration.
Experiment
True activities categorized under the term experiment must involve a variable, something that changes, which affects the outcome. Take the classic vinegar and baking soda reaction, this is a demonstration that can be used to explain basic ideas of chemistry from chemical reactions to states of matter. Changing the format from demonstration to experiment is as easy as creating a variable to experiment with, such as the amount of baking soda in the reaction. Most demonstrations can become experiments and vice versa, the best demonstrations are the results of lots of experimentation.
Activity
An activity is about the process and is set up to be curiosity-driven with freedom to explore. In addition, there is no strong end goal in mind or a strict set of instructions to follow. Think of the activity ‘mining for chocolate chips,’ yes there is a goal, take out the chocolate chips, but mostly the kids are having fun pretending to be paleontologists taking ‘fossils’ out of ‘rocks’. Other examples in this category include outdoor education like pond dipping or hiking, open-ended stem toys such as squishy circuits, educational physical games like variations on tag, and anything play-based. It can be easy to confuse Activity and Center since they are so similar. One is curiosity led while the other is question-driven. A center about electricity might be about circuits in parallel and series and have students practicing the differences. An activity about electricity is a bin of squishy circuits.
Goal-Oriented
This is about the end result: build a boat, launch a rocket, make a model of a cell, etc. There are clear instructions on parameters that must be followed and the students have a clear idea of what accomplishing the goal looks like. The three Goal-oriented types are Challenge, School Project, and Repurposed Invention.
Pros of this Method:
Goal-oriented activities are arguably one of the easier lessons to formulate because it’s easy to search for types of goal-oriented projects.
This angle is the best one that allows the student to feel the real-life scenarios of constraints on time, money, and materials.
Tests students' problem-solving skills that directly connect to the knowledge you have provided.
Critiques of this method
The end result can end up looking exceedingly similar, with many students opting to use the same solution to solve the problem.
Build a Bridge Example: all the solutions were required to be made of 100 popsicle sticks, be 12 inches long, and hold a 5lb weight. With constraints like that, most of the bridges will be some form of truss or just a flat plank, and at that point were they really able to put their new knowledge about types of bridges into action?
It may create competition in an environment that is intended to be cooperative.
These projects are based on a known end goal that students are working towards getting ‘right.’
In the bridge example, the way to connect two points has to be a bridge, which means it needs to function like a bridge and probably also look like one. Even if it is not the goal for a toy car to go across, other students will critique the bridge for not being structured as a bridge that cars can drive across.
Challenge
A lesson that puts a limit on types of materials, amount of materials, and/or time to construct in. Challenges may not inherently have the same solution, but because of the strict limitations, the solutions usually look similar, in addition, the challenge often includes the need for teamwork to pass. Examples of this are build a boat, the floor is lava, or marshmallow tower. It may seem like this should be under ability-oriented rather than goal-oriented, but from the students' perspective, the only goal here is to beat their classmates.
School Project
School projects are often used as a way for students to showcase their artistic expression toward demonstrating an understanding of a topic. Examples of this might be creating a model of the solar system, a comic about photosynthesis, or drawing a timeline of the dinosaurs. Read Fair Project, to see how a school project is different from the problem-oriented type of project I’m calling the fair project.
Repurposed Invention
This is one I named myself, but it needed a name because I’ve seen teachers do this type of activity. This is an approach to ‘real-world problem-solving.’ Repurposed invention is where inspiration is taken from an existing solution and is applied in a new way. For example, the wheel is a great invention, repurposed invention is trying to figure out where else a wheel might be useful, like the invention of the water wheel or gears, both are just reimagined wheels. The Repurposed Invention can be seen as the opposite of the Business Dilemma. Where Business Dilemma starts with the problem and is looking for a solution, Repurposed Invention starts with the solution to apply to a problem.
Problem-Oriented
Problem-Oriented is the basic first step for the scientific method, engineering design process, or design thinking. The idea is for students to come to a solution based on following a known process that is used to solve problems. The three Problem-oriented types are Center, Fair Project, and Business Dilemma.
Pros of this Method:
Problem-oriented formats are particularly good for students who need to understand the relevance of a topic.
Allows students to focus on the process rather than the end result
Because there is a process to follow, it's a good place to introduce students to the first concept of higher-level thinking.
Critiques of this method:
The processes introduced can be very rigid and hard for students who struggle to do things in order.
When students realize their idea just isn't feasible in a school classroom's budget, it can discourage them from engaging in the rest of the lesson. No, we don’t have titanium, or a way to weld, or experts capable of welding for this awesome idea you imagined.
Center
Center in is a term that most likely originated from the Montessori curriculum. Unlike most of the other items on this list, you can buy a center in addition to DIYing one for your classroom. A center is created with a specific teaching lesson involved, often has a specific way of being used, and can be seen as action-oriented. Think of the stem boxes people put together, STEM toys like a programmable robot, or activities that teach a specific skill or topic. Center and Activity can be easy to confuse as they are so similar. A center about magnets might focus on teaching the concept of ‘is it magnetic or not’, while an activity about magnets might have the student doing a maze with a paperclip and a magnet.
Fair project
A fair project is any project that can be submitted for a science fair, engineering fair, stem fair, etc. Fair projects follow the scientific method or engineering design process starting with a problem, they involve variables in the form of experimentation or prototyping and have a conclusion. Fair projects and School projects may seem similar, but while the results may look similar, fair projects focus on the process of following the scientific method or design process, while school projects are about demonstrating knowledge gained on a topic.
Business Dilemma
This is another one I named and I went back and forth on the name many times, but I think Business Dilemma covers the concept idea. This is a method for “real-world problem-solving.” There is a problem or need requiring a solution, but this activity also takes into account who is asking for the solution. For example, if the need is to increase public safety, the solution might look different coming from a hospital executive than a car manufacturer. This is a method used for teaching the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as well as Biomimicry Engineering. (Though Biomimicry calls the process ‘challenge to biology.’) This format can be seen as the opposite of Repurposed Invention, here the problem is known without what the solution should look like, there the solution is known without a known application.
Ability-Oriented
Ability-oriented activities are all about creating an environment where students can push the limits of their ability safely and constructively. As teachers, we seek out ability-oriented lessons when we notice an area of growth that needs nurturing: cooperation, patience, critical thinking, etc. These can be difficult lessons to find because the subject doesn’t matter, it is in how the topic is formatted. The three Ability-oriented types are Challenge by Choice, Clubs, and Makerspace.
Pros of this Method:
The method allows for students to have the greatest amount of choice
The focus is the growth of the student no matter what level they come at
Critiques of this method:
Growth is student lead, if they don’t want to grow, these methods can allow them to accomplish nothing in their time with you
The design is for everyone to be at a different level which is a lot for a teacher to juggle
Challenge by Choice
Challenge by choice is a term used most often in outdoor education, it is a way to encourage students to feel safe, and in control of their situation, and because of that, it gives them confidence to try something that might intimidate them. It can be seen as a hybrid of an activity and a challenge; the activity is chosen by the teacher, but the students have the choice of how hard of a challenge they want to aim for. Because it is a hybrid, you can take just about any Activity or Challenge and format it to be challenge by choice. Take the build a boat challenge, to format it to challenge by choice, I give students the option if they want the challenge to be easy, medium, or hard, based on that choice dictates how much tape they get. The other way to hybrid build a boat is to offer students the ability to decide what the challenge is: Does your boat need to hold weight for a long time, be the fastest, or survive waves?
Club
STEM clubs often focus on fundamentals rather than topics; the improvement pace is based on how much the student genuinely enjoys what they are doing and their effort in getting better. Clubs are group-oriented lessons, where everyone works on growing as individuals. As an ability-oriented lesson, the end result isn’t incredibly important, although a final show of some sort is often done to demonstrate the level of growth accomplished in the time since the student started. The source material here are group activities like karate, dance, baseball, and music lessons.
Makerspace
A makerspace is an environment that has a wide variety of tools and materials for the students to use in their own personal open-ended projects. The makerspace allows for a group of people whose abilities range from minimal to expert to work in the same space and not be held back by the others in the room. This fact is a huge perk that is difficult to replicate in the other formats. A student's limitation in a makerspace is their ability to create. Creation is based on their fundamental knowledge of engineering, makerspaces are in the ability category because of this limitation, as they increase that knowledge, their ability will increase, which opens up more options in the makerspace.
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