Hacking STEM Lessons & Hands-On Activities
Build affordable inquiry and project-based activities to visualize data across science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) curriculum. Middle school standards-based lesson plans written by teachers for teachers.
¡AHORA LOS PLANES DE LECCIONES ESTÁN DISPONIBLES EN ESPAÑOL!Lesson Plans, They’re Free!
Using Pythagorean theorem to Measure Topography
Students build measuring tools from cardboard or LEGO® bricks to create an initial transportation plan for an island national park in Excel. Next, they use the Pythagorean theorem to design their road and bring their national park to life by adding topographic elements in Paint 3D.
MAKE THE MEASURING TOOLS
Measuring Water Quality to Understand Human Impact
This activity has students acting as stream hydrologists. They construct an Electrical Conductivity (EC) Sensor using inexpensive materials such as drinking straws and wire. In addition, they explore proportional relationships using Excel graphs to calibrate the EC Sensor for accuracy. They then use the calibrated sensor to compare and contrast the quality of different water samples visualized in a custom Excel Workbook.
MAKE A CONDUCTIVITY SENSOR
Measuring Speed to Understand Forces and Motion
Students use everyday objects to sensorize their cars and track. Then, measure speed and collision force in a customized Excel workbook.
Make a Sensorized Track
Harnessing Electricity to Communicate
Students build a telegraph out of everyday objects to understand electrical energy and its role in communications. Then, they use a customized workbook to send and receive information in Morse code using their telegraph.
Make a Telegraph
Building Machines that Emulate Humans
Students build robotic models from cardboard and straws to understand the anatomy and biomechanics of the human hand. Then, they conduct trials visualizing data in Excel to generate new ideas for improving it’s performance.
Make A Robotic Hand
Using Computational Thinking to Understand Earthquakes
Students build a seismograph to visualize earthquake data and explore modern engineering techniques used to mitigate earthquake damage. Then, they engage in an Excel big data activity to understand plate tectonics.
Make a SeismographUsing Pythagorean theorem to Measure Topography
Students use the Pythagorean theorem to explore and measure topography in 2D/3D space. Acting as environmental surveyors and engineers, they build measuring tools with cardboard or LEGO® bricks to create and visualize an initial transportation plan for the development of an island national park in Excel. Their goal is to build an efficient transportation plan that minimizes the environmental impact on the island. They then bring their National Park to life by adding topographic elements in Paint 3D.
Hacking STEM is made possible by a partnership between the Education Workshop, Hack for Good and the Microsoft Garage
What is the Education Workshop?
A small incubation team inside of Microsoft that focuses on developing next generation hardware, software, and services for K-12 education. Our goal is to support teachers building inquiry and project-based activities that embed computational and design thinking into existing middle school curriculum. We want to democratize STEM for learners and demonstrate how all schools can provide affordable opportunities to bring ‘making’ and 21st century technical skills to the classroom. Hacking STEM was originally prototyped by the Education Workshop as a Hack For Good during Microsoft’s 2016 //Oneweek Hackathon. Our ‘hacked’ version of Excel brings to life the fundamentals of science, opens the emerging world of IOT to the classroom and helps educators meet the NGSS and ISTE standards for data science.
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Hack for Good
Hack for Good is the community of employees who want to use their technical and business hacking skills to help solve the world's greatest societal problems. The goal is to foster a community that will collaborate, create and build solutions that will empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.
Microsoft philanthropies
The Microsoft Garage
The Microsoft Garage "Ship Channel" is Microsoft's official outlet for experimental projects from small teams across the company to test a hypothesis, receive early customer feedback, and determine product market fit. The Garage provides expert guidance and a lightweight release process to help teams get their experiments out quickly.
Microsoft Garage
