This STEM challenge focuses on plant and animal adaptations, adding and subtracting with regrouping, and writing to persuade.

This package includes:

-Essential Question
- Teacher's Guide
-Close Read Article on Adaptations
-Close Read article about Pierre the Penguin
-Adaptation to Invention Sort (can use as a separate grade)
-Notebook pages for each stage of the process (ask, imagine, plan, create, improve)
-Green Screen directions
-judges rubric for peer evaluation


To start this challenge, begin by introducing the concepts of adaptations. Students can then watch the video clip on Pierre the Penguin and read the close read “Pierre’s Problem”. This will catch the student’s attention and bring them in to the challenge. Discussing how similar the wet suit is to the penguin’s coverings will make a great connection between adaptations and human inventions. Students can them complete the sort so that they can see other examples of how adaptations of plants and animals have been used in the past. Begin the ask stage of the engineering design process. I shrink these pages so that they can glue them into their STEM/Engineering journals. If students are struggling with ideas, let them do research, improve a product that is already made, or combine products. If you do not want to use the green screen or you do not have access to technology, you can have students present or pitch their idea to the class. To assess the product, have students vote on whether they could find the product helpful and affordable.