5 Easy Beach STEM Activities

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When the weather gets hot, it’s a must to head to the lake or ocean with the kids. There are countless ways to sneak in some learning as you are keeping cool, and the kids most likely won’t even know it’s happening. We have compiled some beach stem activities to help!

5 Easy Beach Stem Activities

1. Magnify Grains of Sand

One of my favorite beach STEM activities is to study sand. Sand is beautiful. It may seem like just another one of those mundane and annoying things that kids track into the car and everywhere else, but it is worth a second look.

Sand is different everywhere you go because it is made up of eroded rock, minerals, and seashells. Just as the mountains are different in various geographic locations, so is the sand that has washed away into the ocean or lake.

To observe sand up close, bring along a magnifying glass or another magnifier. I really like this magnifier because you can view your sand from above and below, and it can hold a bit of water for viewing water samples or small aquatic life. Plus you get four different boxes so multiple children can be looking at the same time and then compare what the various strengths of magnification show.  If you don’t have a magnifier, you can use the camera on your cell phone since most of them have a zoom feature. Or you can simply scoop up a handful of sand and take a closer look.

What colors do you see? What shapes? Sand is amazing, but you may have never taken time to look before!

Bring some baggies and take some home with you to be studied under a microscope. You might be surprised to see how beautiful sand is at a high magnification!

2. How Hot Is the Sand? (Be sure to download the printable chart to go with this activity!)

This is a great beach STEM activity that can also save you some pain! The sand is hot, hot, hot! Before stepping out onto the sand on a blazing hot day, take its temperature! Bring along an infrared temperature gun to use. (This isn’t as fancy, expensive, or high-tech as it sounds. Check out infrared thermometers here.) Test the temperature of the sand in various places such as sand that’s in the shade, sand that’s covered by water, or sand that’s in direct sunlight. Challenge your kids to find the sand that’s the hottest and the coolest. Talk about the different locations and how they affect the temperatures of the sand. Discuss how temperatures vary at different times of the day. What else might affect the temperature of the sand? (Examples are weather, the season of the year, whether or not the sand is shaded, the content, closer to the water, etc.)

While you’re at it, test the temperatures of other surfaces such as the pavement in the parking lot, the surface of the lake or ocean, etc. You can even carry on this kind of observation at home by taking the temperature of surfaces of places such as your driveway, the bricks or siding on your house, the windshield of your car, etc. If you have access to a wall or building that’s painted with different colors of paint, test the painted surfaces at the same time of day to find out which colors of paint hold the most (or least) amount of heat. Be sure you take into consideration whether all of the surfaces receive the same amount of sun, etc. And test various surfaces at different times of day to find out how different surface temperatures change over time, how quickly they change, and so on.

Your children can use this handy printable to record the date, the time, the temperature of the sand (or whatever other surfaces they decide to measure), and the location and conditions affecting the sand or other surfaces. Be sure they understand why it’s important to record this information so they can compare their results.

  • Date: Record the date in order to compare temperatures taken on one date versus temperatures taken in the same locations on other dates.
  • Time: Record the time in order to compare temperatures on other dates at the same time of day.
  • Surface Temperature: Record the temperature of each surface measured.
  • Conditions/Location: Record the conditions and location for each measurement. For example, if your children are recording the surface temperature of sand taken in various locations and under various conditions, their printable chart might include information in the conditions/location column such as, “cloudy day in the shade beside the pool,” or “sunny day in the full sun on the beach,” or “sandcastle beside the ocean in full sun on a partly cloudy day.” 

3. Build an Underwater Viewer

This beach STEM activity needs some preparation so you might want to do this one at home. Before you head to the beach, show kids how to build a simple underwater viewer from recycled items. This can be used to see what is under the water and to evaluate water clarity, which is one way to evaluate the health of a body of water.

You will need a recycled plastic container (with a lid if possible), some plastic wrap, a rubber band (if you do not have the lid to your container), and scissors.

Cut the bottom out of the plastic container. Cut a circle out of the lid, leaving a bit around the edge.

Flip it right side up and place a piece of plastic wrap across the top. Put the lid back on. Voila! (If you don’t have the lid, just secure the plastic wrap with a rubber band.)

Look down through the bottom of the container, what do you see?

4. Design and Build a Mini-Solar Oven

This beach STEM actviity is not normally associated with the beach, but with camping… but this is perfect to do at the beach too. Bring some marshmallows, chocolate bars, and graham crackers in the cooler, and challenge your kids to build a solar oven to make beach s’mores! This is a science activity I can get into! 🙂 

The building challenge: Make a mini-solar oven that can hold at least one s’more. Devise a way to keep the s’more from getting sandy or being discovered by insects or other wildlife while it is cooking.

Have kids build their mini-solar ovens ahead of time or make them at the beach. Items like paper cups, aluminum foil, and plastic baggies will get them started. For a full list of potential supplies and other ideas for inspiring kids to design and build their own ovens, check out this solar oven STEM engineering challenge.

5. Survival Training: Engineer a Solar Still

If you are visiting a saltwater beach, kids can use items you have for your picnic to build a mini-solar still and use the sun to remove the salt from a water sample. This is not only fun, but is also a legitimate way to collect and obtain fresh water to drink if you were in an emergency situation.

You’ll need a bowl, cup (glasses or jars work best), plastic wrap, or a plastic bag. Put some saltwater in the bottom of the bowl. Place the cup in the middle of the bowl, facing upward. The water you put in the bowl should not be higher than the top of the cup!

Cover the entire thing with plastic wrap or a transparent or translucent plastic bag. Pull the plastic tight around the bowl. (You may find it helpful to put something heavy, like a rock or a big seashell, on top of the cup to hold everything into place.)

Place it in the sun for a while. Eventually, you’ll have a bit of fresh water in the cup. Don’t believe me? Taste it!

What beach STEM activities have your children done? Leave us a comment and tell us all about the activity! We love to hear how others are making science fun!!

Sarah Benton Feitlinger, is a science educator with over 10 years experience sharing science in nature and environmental centers, museums, and schools. She has been studying science and nature in one way or another pretty much her whole life! Currently, she’s a work-at-home mom, a freelance K-12 science curriculum developer, children’s science writer, and blogger. She has a passion for making science understandable, and her goal is to make it accessible for everyone. Her blog, Share It! Science,  focuses on connecting current events in science to resources and activities for teachers, parents, and students.

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