Whether you’re organizing a single STEM event or building a multiday summer experience, Youth Engineering Solutions (YES) from the Museum of Science, Boston offers flexible, hands-on engineering units designed specifically for informal learning environments. YES engages young people in real-world engineering challenges, introduces them to a variety of STEM careers, and helps them build skills for the future.
YES Enrichment’s standards-aligned K–8 units tackle real-world problems using the engineering design process (define, research, brainstorm, prototype, test, refine). The units are specifically designed to support STEM special events, electives, makerspaces, clubs, camps, spring break, and summer programs. Through hands-on investigation and testing, students learn to embrace challenges, persist through failure, iterate on their designs, and unleash their creativity.
For example, the Engineering a Park Cleanup activity presents a common problem—trash in a public park—and invites participants to help solve it. While designing a tool to help remove trash, participants reflect on their own options for reducing trash. The activity takes 10 to 20 minutes and is designed for youth aged 6–12, or children aged 4 and up with family groups or caregivers.
Other activities include Engineering Sun Hats, in which kindergarten-aged children explore the cooling effects of shade as they engineer sun hats that block sunlight and meet users’ needs.
And the newest unit, Engineering Parachutes, includes nine activities (five core, four optional), in which upper elementary youth use the engineering design process to design a parachute that falls as slowly as possible to deliver seeds to an area in need of reforestation. This unit connects to the forthcoming Environmental Career Exploration module, in which upper elementary-aged youth explore six roles: aeronautical engineer, documentary filmmaker, environmental planner, forest ecologist, pilot, and science communicator.
The youth resources for all activities are available in English and Spanish. Teachers can view a webinar recording that provides valuable strategies to engage students in engineering and STEM learning in summer programs and beyond.