Save the bees with this pollinator hotel STEM Challenge!
Activity Overview: Two types of solitary bees, mason and leaf cutter bees, are in search of a new home. They need a safe place to lay eggs. These eggs will turn into baby bees that will pollinate flowers and produce more delicious fruit! First, you will learn about pollinators and the needs of our bee friends. Then design and build a pollinator hotel to provide shelter and a place for bees to lay eggs.
This hands-on activity is an engaging design challenge that allows students to work in teams (or individually), apply the engineering design process, and connect math and science topics to real-world applications.
Engineering Challenge: Students will learn about bees, bee home preferences, and pollination. Students will then research 2 solitary bee types and brainstorm how to create a Pollinator Hotel for solitary bees. Lastly, students are tasked to use the engineering design process to take their brainstormed idea and design and build a pollinator hotel to provide shelter and a place for bees to lay eggs that satisfies this challenge’s design constraints.
Real-world STEM Connection:
Electrical Engineering
Entomologist
The decline in bee population
Types of bees
Pollinators
Suggested Materials: Many different materials can be used for this challenge. Here are some suggestions that worked well for our students.
