STEM PBL Units enable students to make STEM connections locally and regionally by completing STEM projects and corresponding STEM PBL Activators. The framework of our STEM PBL Units includes a meaningful STEM challenge, authentic inquiry, student choice, applied development, and public engagement. Additionally, all STEM PBL Units contain 3-D printing connections, career connections, and alignment to the national career clusters.
In the Water-Powered Rocketry STEM PBL Unit, students are challenged to complete any of the three Activators chosen by them or the teacher. PBL Activators available include Ready, Aim, FIRE, where students create a model water-delivery rocket for fighting forest, house, or high-rise apartment fires, whichever is more applicable to their location; More Fuel, where students work to improve the fuel for a water rocket launch system to achieve different results in the flight properties of the rocket; and Low-Gravity Rockets, where students choose a known comet or asteroid and, based on experimentation with their rocket on Earth, determine what velocity must be achieved to escape the gravity well of the asteroid or comet.
The unit comes with materials and equipment needed for a class of 24 students, a teacher’s guide containing activity details and instructions, and a guide with three STEM PBL Activators containing starter ideas, cross-curricular connections, a concept map, and career cluster alignment. A Getting Started with STEM PBL e-learning course comes with the purchase of a unit.
Click here to take a look at how Pitsco’s STEM PBL compares to PBLWorks Gold Standard, HQPBL, and the Legacy Cycle.
Click here to download a blank STEM PBL Planning Form.
Note: E-learning course access will be provided via email upon shipping confirmation.