Are you looking for a fun way to start off your STEM school year that will promote creativity, build community and utilize resources from the outdoors? Welcome teachers to STEM Survival Camp! This unique experience will hook your students immediately to start off your school year. Grab your favorite camp shirt, and let's get started.

Now I definitely think that STEM Survival Camp is a cute name. You're probably wondering, where in the world did this come from? I am definitely not one to be known as a survivalist (and I have no desire to be a survivalist!) But I know that this was an exciting unit for my students.

I had typically started off my STEM school year with digital citizenship lessons, which are still important and I still teach in my STEM space. However, it was the Fall of 2020 (which we know what that means), and I needed a unit that could in a moment's notice be taken online, and all my students I was teaching for the week had access to supplies.

During the summer, my Teacher-Honey and I were obsessed about watching the show ‘Alone'. If you haven't watched the show ‘Alone', here's basically what it is. There are 10 nature survivalists who are experts in their field. They are taken off to these extreme conditions to survive alone. And they literally are alone! They are taught how to use the cameras. So there isn't a camera crew on the side telling them what to do. They're all alone, they're sent to these remote conditions, and they have to survive off the land as long as possible. They're hunting, they're building their shelters, they're staying entertained if they're there for a long time.

Now they get 10 items to bring with them of their choice and obviously, a certain amount of clothing. But it is so extreme and so entertaining. And it was the inspiration for STEM Survival Camp!

Now if you don't know me by now, I am one who loves a good theme, and I think it can be actually very beneficial for students to plan themematic units, that are tied to standards; this can really pump up the engagement.

Not only were students entering STEM Survival Camp, we had to do a little bit of a room transformation. So luckily, my Teacher-Honey had some camping gear because I definitely don't own any of this stuff. Now let me paint the picture of this room transformation. (I will link all of this on the show notes so if you want to check out all the pictures of what STEM Survival Camp looks like in my classroom, definitely check that out. It'll be at naomimeredith.com/episode4.

In the corner, my classroom I set up a little small tent that kids actually weren't allowed to go in. (I told them that the zipper was broken and they believed me!) The tent was just decoration. I set up the little small tent, there was a little camping chair, and I made a little campfire out of paper towel tubes and paper. I actually keep the campfire every year and I tell the kids that I've been keeping the fire warm for them. Nobody thinks that joke is funny except me. So I set up a little corner with this tent.

There are also signs around the classroom. There's a big sign made on that fake wooden paper that says ‘Welcome to STEM Survival Camp!'. Then my classroom has one whole wall that is glass. On the glass wall, I built these paper mountains that were cute and cartoony. My wall also has sliding glass doors. So on the side that's connected to the library, I built a whole little RV camper out of paper. When the door slid open, it was like you were stepping into the RV.

Not only did I decorate my room, I decorated myself! I went on Amazon and bought a few camp shirts, which was super fun. Then I also told the kids to get excited! If they had any camp shirts from the summer, I had them wear them throughout the week. I would take their picture over by the little tent and then it will go in our digital picture frame that I have ever since I first started teaching STEM.

This picture frame shows our ‘STEM Style' so when kids wear anything that connects to science, technology, engineering and math, I will put their picture on the digital picture frame. The kids love seeing themselves from over the years and also making the connections as to what their shirts demonstrate.

Another fun thing we did during the STEM Survival Camp is I said wear camo on Fridays. A lot of kids would come in, and we would take the class picture with those wearing their camo. So getting the kids excited, and building that community community with that short time I had with them was so much fun.

Now, you're probably wondering what each of the challenges were for each of the grade levels. When I got started with STEM Survival Camp, I had known the kids already for a couple of years, and I was ready working up to having different challenges for each grade grade level. If this is something that you want to do in your classroom, you can definitely combine challenges. So K & 1 can do the same, 2&3 and 4&5. I'm going to go through what I did for each grade level.

All of these challenges had limited supplies, and they had to be created within constraints of those supplies. This wasn't an open ended Makerspace challenge either. They were able to use all the materials that I supplied for them, some, or none, (with the exception for the fourth grade one, which will make sense in a second.)

Each of these [challenges] also gives them the opportunity to collect items from the outdoors. Once we got to that create phase, we had some rules about how to gather supplies when we are outside.

5th grade's challenge was the ‘Build the Shelter. They had to create a shelter that would withstand the elements. (These were tiny shelters as well not big enough for a kid!) They were given a few supplies for me, just like the show ‘Alone', they were given their certain supplies, and then anything that they found outdoors. This was a great chance for them to find creative sticks or rocks that could make their shelter even stronger.

The elements that they had to test or shelter against was snow, which was glitter. Now I'm the rare teacher who likes glitter;I don't mind a little bit of sparkle in my classroom! You might want to use something else but I I controlled the glitter and I was cool with it being on the floor because my room got got a little bit of sass!

There was a water station and students put their shelter in an empty bucket. The bucket next to it was filled with water and had a sponge and they squeeze the sponge on top. We had the wind station where there was a box fan and they could test it with different levels of the fan.

4th grade's challenge was the one that didn't necessarily use items from the outdoors, but it did teach them a survival skill. There's was to create a hiking backpack. After designing a thoughtful plan, they actually sewed their little tiny backpack that was small enough that can be used for their toys. We did use real needles and thread to make that experience come to life. It was so cute how excited they were to have a little tiny working prototype of their backpack.

3rd grade was to create a ‘Game from the Land'. If you watch the show ‘Alone', the people who are there for a long time are bored out of their minds, and they start creating games to play with themselves to stay entertained. Luckily, the kids had people to play their games with them. But using the few materials I gave them and anything they collected outdoors, they created a game that they could play.

Some thought of some yard games that they had played during the summer and created a variation of that. Some were finding interesting rocks that could be a dice, they were looking for very cool shapes that had flat sides, and they could write on the rock to create their dice. It was pretty cool to see their creativity come to life in that way.

2nd grade's challenge was ‘Protect the Food'. They created a small prototype to keep the food safe from different kinds of animals in the environment. We talked about that there are animals that climb, crawl, fly, and even thinking about whether how their food could be safe from those elements, but also easy enough for a human to get.

Some kids created obstacle courses for the animals so that they couldn't get the food some created contraptions that kept the food safe. This was a fun way to have them think about different animals that would be in the environment.

1st grade's challenge was ‘Build a Fishing Pole'. This is a very common one when you're watching ‘Alone', almost all of the contestants create some sort of fishing rod. Once we got to the part of collecting items from outside we talked about safety carrying sticks; We always carry our sticks to our side, we are always walking with our sticks. We use body measurements so the sticks weren't too long, (from a student's wrist to their elbow, that was the maximum length that a stick could be) and then they could collect five or less sticks.

I did give some items where they could connect the sticks together. Then there were little fish that I made ahead of time with paper that they could fish for and test their design.

Kindergarten's challenge was ‘Cross the River'. Again, on this show ‘Alone', a lot of the contestants need to figure out a way to get across the river, sometimes they want to build their shelter over there, a lot of times get other food, maybe the weather is coming in. This was a cool way to experiment with the Kindergarteners about sinking and floating, and things that actually stay in the water. They had little buckets that I filled with water on the last day, but they're able to experiment with different things they collected from outside.

We talked about maybe stepping stones could be a way to get across the water across the water, maybe creating a little raft and maybe making a swinging rope. They experimented with ways to cross the tiny river.

Now this one, at first was a little bit confusing for kindergarten, some of them thought that they were actually crossing a river, and I had to make sure like to make it clear, you're not crossing the riverl it's a small version of crossing the river. They're so cute! They honestly love playing with the water. You can do the water part outside depending on where your classroom is set up and if it's easy to get access to water.

All of these challenges are a great way to chat with your kids get to know them get excited about STEM. Of course, these are things that they could do at home as well.

Luckily, I didn't actually have to go remote when this got started. This was so popular after that Fall 2020, it came back and it's coming back again! Kids get very excited about STEM Survival Camp and they're starting to collect their camp shirts to wear and bring in and show me all the things that they did over the summer.

Even as a STEM teacher, you still can build community and excitement in your classroom and build relationships with your students. This STEM Survival Camp unit is a great way to get started.

If you want to hear more in detail about how I use the Engineering Design Process throughout this STEM Survival Camp experience, I will be presenting at the free Seesaw Connect 2022 conference, and that is running from July 25 through August 14, 2022.

I also have that same presentation posted in my monthly STEM Teacher Ultimate Resource membership. You can definitely check it out there at any time without any time constraints.