Teacher Experience: “Pushes and Pulls” Task for Kindergarten Science & STEM Students

A Defined STEM Learning Experience From:
Paul Karlovics
Kindergarten Science/ STEM Teacher
Summit 104 (IL)

Performance Task:
Pushes and Pulls

Here’s What We Did:
For this task, students pretended they were playground inspectors and had to discover equipment that required a push or a pull to operate. I took students out to the playground with a checklist that they used to inspect a variety of equipment such as swings, balance beams, monkey bars, slides, seesaws, climbing nets or walls, and rings to determine if they needed to push or pull to do the activity.

Why Defined STEM Was the Perfect Fit:
Students were eager to participate in this task because it felt like a mini-field trip to go to the playground during class. Having a checklist helped students concentrate on the task at hand instead of playing on the equipment. This was a great task to get young students focused on the core concept of pushes and pulls, and relate the idea to something they are familiar with.