STEMventures Exploration Kits
Our STEMventure Exploration Kits make it easy for you to transform any informal or formal lesson into a fun, hands-on STEM learning opportunity!
We’ve gathered the materials and information for you, and with an Exploration Kit, you can incorporate science learning fun right into your teaching or activity. These kits range from curriculum enhancement that integrate Indigenous Knowledge to hands-on STEM activities that engage all learners.
Our STEMventures are an important tool for institutions and organizations that need science instruction support. Access to STEMventures is a huge benefit to children and students, encouraging engagement with their science identity and building their curiosity.
If you have any questions about our Exploration Kits, please email info@sd-discovery.org.
EXPLORATION KIT RATES:
$200, includes full kit of materials and instructions, plus shipping within South Dakota
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RATE DISCOUNTS:
SDDC Member Discount: 20% | $160
Nonprofit Organization Discount: 15% | $170
Sponsored Counties Discount (see below): 50% | $100
Please Note: Only one discount can be applied at a time.
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SD Discovery Center Membership yields BIG savings; become a member today!
STEMventures Special: Sponsored Counties
All schools and nonprofit groups from the following counties receive 50% off STEMventures Programs thanks to support from the Bankwest Foundation: Charles Mix, Davison, Douglas, Gregory, Haakon, Hughes, Hutchinson, Jackson, Jones, Lawrence, Lyman, McCook, Pennington, Potter, Stanley, Sully, Tripp, Todd, and Walworth.
Please address your thank you note to the following address:
Bankwest
Attn: Charles Burke III
420 S Pierre St.
Pierre, SD 57501
STEMventure Exploration Kits
Our STEMventures Exploration Kits are for formal and informal educators to check out. They include curriculum enhancement that integrates Indigenous Knowledge and hands-on science learning activities that follow our STEM Learning Pathways.
We are working to increase access to STEMventures through our Sponsored Counties efforts, email info@sd-discovery.org to learn more and to suggest potential partners.
Please note:
Our Exploration Kits are undergoing a BIG overhaul, meaning that this list will continue to change, so please contact us if you have any questions or can’t find what you are looking for. You can also email info@sd-discovery.org to let us know if there is a subject you want us to develop an Exploration Kit for!
The headings below will jump to your STEM emphasis when you click on them:
Stories in Stone
GRADE 4-8 | 8 ACTIVITIES
This earth science unit explores the formation of igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks. Students distinguish and classify rocks and minerals, observe formation of salt crystals and make model crystal shapes, and use clay-modeling activities to learn about the rock cycle and more.
Aquatic Habitats
GRADE 2-6 | 5 ACTIVITIES
These engaging life science activities, in which students set up and observe living “desktop ponds” in the classroom, convey key environmental concepts and illustrate the interactive nature of living ecosystems.
Investigating Artifacts: Making Masks, Creating Myths, Exploring Middens
GRADE K-6 | 6 ACTIVITIES
This rich unit introduces children to the concepts of inference and evidence with activities relating to anthropology, archaeology, and diverse Native American and world cultures. Students sort and classify natural objects, make masks and create “myths,” and excavate a shoe box midden.
Ocean Currents
GRADE 4-8 | 7 ACTIVITIES
This companion guide to Only One Ocean provides fascinating, real-world insights into the causes and effects of marine currents. Students explore how wind, temperature, salinity, and density set water in motion. They learn how the ocean makes our planet livable and transports nutrients, people, and pollution.
Schoolyard Ecology
GRADE 3-6 | 5 ACTIVITIES
Students are introduced to biological sampling techniques and mapping as they survey their schoolyards ecosystem. Based on the results of their survey, they select their favorite part of the schoolyard and then write about it in a concluding activity.
Terrarium Habitats
GRADE K-6 | 5 ACTIVITIES
These life science activities bring the natural world into your classroom and deepen children’s understanding of and connection to all living things. Students investigate soil, design and populate terrariums, and observe and record changes over time.
Bubble-ology
GRADE 4-8 | 10 ACTIVITIES
Imaginative experiments with soap bubbles introduce students to solid science, technology, and math content. Students have a ball as they learn important concepts in chemistry and physics, devising a number of experiments and drawing conclusions.
Crime Lab Chemistry
GRADE 4-8 | 5 ACTIVITIES
Recently updated and expanded, in this forensic science primer student detectives use paper chromatography to investigate solubility, pigments, and separation of mixtures. New activities provide opportunities to explore and understand scientific models.
Electric Circuits: Inventive Physical Science Activities
GRADE 3-6 | 11 ACTIVITIES
This flexible unit opens with conductors, insulators, and simple closed circuits; these early sessions can combine to serve as a basic electricity unit. In later, more advanced sessions, students read circuit diagrams, build circuits, and learn about series and parallel circuits.
Exploring Magnetism
GRADE 4-8 | 5 ACTIVITIES
In the sessions of “Exploring Magnetism,” your students will act as scientists discovering magnetic fields and electromagnetism through inquiry and measurement.
Involving Dissolving
GRADE 1-3 | 4 ACTIVITIES
This guide, like Liquid Explorations and Secret Formulas, creates a very positive early experience with chemistry. Here students explore the concepts of dissolving, evaporation, and crystallization. Using familiar substances, they create homemade “gel-o” colorful disks, and crystals that emerge on black paper to make a “starry night.”
Liquid Explorations
GRADE 1-3 | 5 ACTIVITIES
A great way to introduce young students to the properties of liquids, and (like Involving Dissolving and Secret Formulas) an excellent physical science unit for primary grades. Activities include classification, observation, and experimentation; one activity supports discussion of oil slicks and other environmental issues.
Mystery Festival - The Felix Story
GRADE 4-8 | 5 ACTIVITIES
This extremely popular forensic science unit features an imaginative and compelling mystery for older children. Students learn to distinguish evidence from inference, and conduct such crime-lab investigations as thread tests, powder tests, DNA comparisons, chromatography, and fingerprinting.
Mystery Festival - Who Borrowed Mr. Bear?
GRADE 2-3 | 5 ACTIVITIES
This extremely popular forensic science unit features an imaginative and compelling mystery for younger children. Students learn to distinguish evidence from inference, and conduct such crime-lab investigations as thread tests, powder tests, DNA comparisons, chromatography, and fingerprinting.
Oobleck: What Do Scientists Do?
GRADE 4-8 | 4 ACTIVITIES
This immensely popular unit has been updated, but the strangely behaving substance called Oobleck still provides high engagement while students gain authentic insight into real-world scientific inquiry. Students are totally engaged in observation, hands-on investigation, a scientific convention, and spacecraft design.
Secret Formulas
GRADE 1-3 | 9 ACTIVITIES
In these compelling physical science activities, children investigate the properties of substances as they make their own personal brands of toothpaste, paste, cola, and ice cream. The unit provides real-life experiences with chemistry and conveys key science/math skills and concepts including cause and effect.
Earth, Moon, and Stars
GRADE 4-8 | 6 ACTIVITIES
Students learn a great deal about the Earth and astronomy with modeling and observation activities that focus on gravity, the shape of our planet, moon phases and eclipses, and the stars. A questionnaire on the Earth’s shape and gravity makes an excellent pre- and post-assessment tool.
Messages from Space
GRADE 5-8 | 6 ACTIVITIES
This exciting unit opens with a binary-coded message “from space” and takes the class on a journey through our solar system and beyond. Students model size and distance, explore how systems may have formed, ponder stellar “life zones,” and design space travel brochures.
Moons of Jupiter
GRADE 4-8 | 5 ACTIVITIES
Observing and recording moon orbits over time, students reenact Galileo’s historic telescopic study of Jupiter’s moons and learn why his observations contributed to the birth of modern astronomy. Students experiment with craters, create scale models, and take a tour of the Jupiter system.
Space Science Sequencing (3-5)
GRADE 3-5 | 9 ACTIVITIES
Students learn fundamental concepts in space science using the Sun-Earth-Moon system as the focus. Through models, hands-on activities, and readings, students explore topics such as planet size and distance, Earth’s shape and spin, gravity, the apparent movement of the sun and stars, moon phases and eclipses.
Space Science Sequencing (6-8)
GRADE 6-8 | 5 ACTIVITIES
This advanced kit offers lessons on the Sun’s effect on Earth, why we have seasons, and the Solar System…. and Beyond.
Downsizing: Exploring Nano
ANY GRADE | 6 ACTIVITIES
Zoom into a tiny world full of surprises! Nano lets us explore and study the most fundamental aspects of our world.
BIG Problems, tiny Tech
ANY GRADE | 6 ACTIVITIES
Nano isn’t just in the lab; we can find it everywhere! Explore how nanotechnology solves BIG problems.
Paper Towel Testing
GRADE 5-8 | 4 ACTIVITIES
This unit is a stimulating introduction to consumer science and controlled experimentation. Students rank the qualities of four paper towel brands, compare the costs of each, and determine which brand is the best buy.
Frog Math: Predict, Ponder, Play
GRADE K-3 | 6 ACTIVITIES
This series of lively activities jumps off from one of the well-known Frog and Toad stories, The Lost Button. The story leads to free exploration then sorting and classifying buttons. A Frog Pond board game helps students develop strategic thinking skills, and the Hop to the Pond game is an experiment in probability and statistics.
In All Probability: Investigations in Probability and Data Analysis
GRADE 3-6 | 12 ACTIVITIES
Students gain confidence in these concepts as they investigate chance, gather and analyze data, make predictions, and draw conclusions. The unit provides a solid basis for the development of much-needed real-life understandings and skills.
Math Around the World
GRADE 4-8 | 8 ACTIVITIES
This stimulating unit uses games and puzzles from many continents to explore mathematics in a multicultural, international context. Each game can be presented as a two- or three-session activity or at a stand-alone learning station. Maps and historical connections provide a social studies element.
Math on the Menu
GRADE 3-5 | 5 ACTIVITIES
This unit provides strong math learning experiences in a real-world context, as students plan and expand menus, determine ingredients, analyze costs, set prices, and design a restaurant floor plan. Students work with data organization and analysis, explore aspects of statistics, and strengthen their sense of numbers, math, and money.
Our Teaching Mission
All SD Discovery Center programs deliver fun, hands-on exploration that builds passion for and knowledge of science across generations; students, teachers, families, citizens.
Our Teaching Framework: The Learning Pathways
Our teaching framework ensures a high-quality class standard that focuses on lasting effects to help students find their path and hone their talents beyond school while developing college and/or career readiness skills (collaboration, creativity, communication and critical thinking) to grow a STEM workforce for South Dakota.
Our programs and kits offer specialty tracks for every age level and allow for age-appropriate lessons that build upon each other along the following paths:
- EXPLORE: Naturalist, Storytelling, Environment
- SCIENCE: Life Science, Physical Science, Space Science
- TECH: Engineering, Coding, Entertainment
- HEALTH: Fitness, Cooking, Gardening
Equity in Education
We believe every child deserves access to hands-on science education! Our nonprofit rates and the generosity of donors and sponsors eliminate barriers to STEM learning and lead to authentic experiences for children and families in need.