Teaching STEM through Fairy Tales: The Golden Goose

The Golden Goose tells a tale about a simpleton who is kind to a stranger and is rewarded with a golden goose.  Because of this lucky golden goose, he makes the princess laugh and is then allowed to marry her, but not after the king issues a series of seemingly impossible requirements, with the last being to present him with a ship that sails on both land and water.

So…this week’s challenge is to design an build an amphibious vehicle that will travel on land as well as sea.

In the Teaching STEM through Fairy Tales series, we further examine the connection between literature- specifically fairy tales- and STEM.  Each featured favorite fairy tale (try saying that one three times fast), makes a connection to STEM and ties the design challenge to the NGSS Engineering Design Standards.

For this challenge, the key is to provide a varied list of found objects.  Just be sure that students have a number of choices to propel the vehicle (balloons, rubber bands, etc.) and to allow it to roll (buttons, wagon wheel pasta, etc.).  Normally, I am a fan of spearmint Life Savers as wheels and weights, but for this challenge, I prefer not to use them since they get sticky due to the water.

Get the Teaching STEM through Fairy Tales STEM Bundle Pack featuring The Golden Goose!