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We love spending time outside, but I also love finding new, and engaging activities that incorporate some learning to do while we’re outside. This collection of 29 Best Outdoor STEM Activities for Kids includes hands-on challenges, activities with water, printables and lots of exciting experiments. So peek through at the ideas below, or have your kids look through and choose activities that interest them.
I have lots of ideas for STEM activities to try with kids, including my popular list of 45+ STEM Challenge Ideas and the second collection of 60 Best STEM Activities for Kids.
When you’re looking to get outside, take a STEM activity with you. STEM activities are great for developing problem solving, team building, and critical thinking skills.
STEM activities focus on the important subjects: science, technology, engineering and math. Ideally STEM activities include a mix of these subjects.
Outdoor STEM Challenges with Water
If you’re looking for a STEM activity to do outside on a warm day, try one that incorporates water! The activities below all include some water mixed into the activity. For more hands-on STEM activities using water, check out 33+ Best Water STEM Activities.
Learn about the importance of clean water with this STEM challenge. Bring materials with you and grab a cup of water from a pond, or another water source to make the activity even more authentic.
Learn all about sound while playing with water and kitchen tools with this Musical Science Pool Experiment. Test different sounds made by different tools.
Take tower building to the next level. Build a city on water and see how it fares against the waves. Kids learn about balance and even sink/float.
Use your water balloons for some summer science! In the laminar flow experiment, water appears to freeze when it’s coming out of a balloon. The secret to this magic trick is, as almost always, science.
Use your senses outside with hands-on, experimental learning, as children explore the properties of different materials. They can learn about recognizing different temperatures and textures. The path also includes a bin where children explore the concept of floating versus sinking.
Grab some pool noodles and reuse them for this hands-on STEM challenge. If you try the activity during the summer, you could even use the pool to test each child’s creation. It’s a fun idea for a summer party!
Engineering Challenges
Take materials outside to engineer different designs. Enjoy being outside while you build and test these creations! For more building challenges, check out 10 Bridge Building Challenges.
How far can you make a balloon go with this balloon rocket experiment? Try different designs and test over and over to get your balloon to go the furthest. This is a great activity to do outside where you have lots of room.
Create a ramp outside using only a few pieces of wood and clothes pins. Test how the speed of a marble is affected by the angle of the board. This experiment is always a lot of fun for kids, and groups.
Watch a superhero fly through the air! Attach a superhero figure to string and test different heights and angles of the string to see which one makes your superhero fly faster. Using a tree house or playground as the top height makes this a great activity to try when you’re at a park outside.
Create an Ewok catapult with this STEM activity using a collection of items from nature.
Egg Drop Challenge
The object of an egg drop challenge is for kids to design a contraption using various materials (usually recyclables) to protect a raw egg from a high fall. Kids always love this STEM activity!
In this fun STEM activity for kids, children will design and build a structure to protect an animal craft (made from UV-sensitive beads) from the sun.
Play with physics as your kids put their critical thinking skills to the test to engineer this fun bottle rocket.
Combine plant science with engineering and physics by making seed bombs with launchers and help rewild your yard.
Challenge children to create a raft using materials from around them in nature, including sticks. Test the creations in a stream or pond.
Printable Outdoor STEM Activities
Sometimes a printable is a great addition to an outdoor activity. The activities below each include a printable page, or two, and all are done outside.
Head outside to solve puzzles and challenges with an outdoor scavenger hunt escape room game. Children explore outside for the puzzles and solving them leads to the next.
How far can you make your rocket go? Use the free printable rocket and design your own rocket to send into the sky. Test and check how far it goes with this Straw Rocket STEM Challenge.
On a hike, or trip outside, sometimes challenging children to work through a booklet is a great way to explore lots of the outdoors. This outdoor learning booklet has children looking at shapes, senses and even a building challenge.
Heading camping this season? Create an escape room game at your camp site. Children use coding, matching and problem solving skills to figure out the puzzles, all side!
Explore your senses with a printable, Free 5 Senses Scavenger Hunt. As children search for each of the items on the page, they will explore their outdoor environment in a whole new way.
Winter Outdoor STEM Activities
Although we typically spend more time outside in beautiful weather, there are still lots of fun things to do outside in the winter and colder weather. Check out the following outdoor STEM activities to use in winter!
This FREE printable winter outdoor activity incorporates math and basic number sense to complete the puzzles.
How do polar bears stay warm in winter? Kids ask great science questions. This free printable activity sends children on a scavenger hunt to search for animals in winter. They’ll learn a bit about what different animals do to survive the cold.
Outdoor STEM Activities Using the Sun
On those sunny days and throughout the summer, make sure to check out a huge list of 37 Simple Summer STEM Activities filled with indoor, and outdoor, summer themed activities.
Year after year, a DIY solar oven is a classic outdoor STEM challenge when the temperature rises!
We’ve all left chocolate, or other food outside at some point and had it melt. Do certain materials cause the melting to happen faster? Test your theory with this simple summer science experiment for kids.
This may look like an art project, but it is so much more! Use crayons and shave them to create crayon curls. Place the curls onto canvas to make an art picture. Let the sun do the rest! Have kids watch as the crayons melt. Is there a color, or two that melt the fastest? Why would some melt faster?
Bring some art to your science this summer by making cyanotype sun art!
Harness the power of the sun and make crayons with this creative hot weather science experiment for kids! Set-up is a breeze, and there is little-to-no clean-up.
Exciting Outdoor Experiments
If you, or your kids love campfire, you’ve got to try this! This green fire experiment is simple to do and amazing to observe!
This is a classic STEM activity that will delight your kids. Grab some Coke and mentos and see what happens.
In this experiment you’ll create a chemical reaction using baking soda and vinegar that will make a baggie explode!
My kids would love this activity! When kids eat watermelons, they love to spit the seeds. Turn their interest into your latest math activity with this Outdoor Watermelon Math activity.
Bubbles are part of summer! Create your bubbles and a bubble snake! Kids will love this variation on classic bubble fun!
I hope these activities have given you lots of screen-free, exciting STEM ideas to try outdoors this season!
Outdoor STEM FREEBIES
Hands-On Teaching Ideas Free Resource Library includes lots of free printables for STEM activities and much more. With the library growing to over 100 resources, you’ll find free escape room games, math printables, worksheets, and much more.
Whether you’re an educator or someone looking for something unique to do with kids, you’ll find lots of ideas in the library. A few printables related to outdoor STEM are shown below. Click the lock icon on the following image and subscribe to Hands-On Teaching Ideas.
Once you have confirmed, you can access the Free Library and search through for any resources you’d like to use.
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