Summer can never seem to come soon enough--for pretty much all of us, it seems, but for kids especially. So let's take a moment to rejoice, because hallelujah, summer's here! But just because your kids are out of school, it doesn't mean the learning has to stop. Here are a few ways to slip some STEM into your barbeques, beach days, and road trips!

• Meet an ice cream engineer

• Make your own ice cream Then, design your own flavor!

• Meet a roller coaster engineer

• Design a roller coaster ride for a marble
  

• Create your own roller coaster
  

• Invent a collection of carnival games (PDF)

• Build an unsinkable boat 

• Learn how a sailboat sails

• Take a road trip to see these iconic examples of engineering
  

• Discover the physics behind a skateboard trick

Still hungry for more? Battle your kids' complaints of boredom with THIS SUPER-SIZED CHALLENGE with super-sized prizes: Build Big (and win!)

Some content courtesy of Fetch with Ruff Ruffman, Time to Invent, and eGFI.

Beatriz is a high school student in Emeryville, California with two passions: music and bicycles. Building bicycles, to be exact. (This girl knows her way around a blow torch.)

Beatriz loves to create and wants to build something unique that combines her two passions--sounds like just the challenge for our favorite pair of engineers. In Musical Bike, Judy and Adam help Beatriz design and build a pedal-powered pipe organ.

You can use Musical Bike as a launching point to teach your kids the science and engineering of sound. Watch the episode and read on for more!


Ready to get your hands on a blow torch, too? Before you pull your old Schwinn out of the garage, check out the wealth of educator resources that support Musical Bike.

Hands-on Activities:
Build a Band: Build a four-stringed instrument and use it to play a tune. (45 min.)
Headphone Helper: Add headphones to a Build a Band instrument to make it easier to hear. (45 min.)
Watch a demo of both activities.

Online Game:
String Thing: Manipulate a virtual string's tension, length, and gauge to produce different musical pitches. (Go ahead, unleash your inner Jimi Hendrix!)

Animations:
What Is Sound? (30 sec.)
What Is Pitch? (30 sec.)
How Do String Length, Tension, and Gauge Affect Pitch? (30 sec.)
How Does Pipe Length Affect Pitch? (30 sec.)
Pedal-Powered Organ (1m 24s)
Pipe Test (1m 30s)
How Does Welding Work? (30 sec.)

Video Profile:
Submarine Sonar - Lt. Darrin Barber: Electrical engineer Lt. Darrin Barber plumbs the depths of sonar technology in his work on one of the U.S. Navy's newest and most high-tech submarines, the USS Texas. (2 min.)

Bonus Sound Episodes:
Rock On: Design Squad teams create original musical instruments for a rock band.

Bonus Bike Episodes:
Garden-to-Go: Adam and Judy help two kids design and build a pedal-powered mobile garden. 
Tour de BBQ: Design Squad teams compete to build a bicycle-powered rotisserie for a BBQ Restaurant.

Okay, now go get that Schwinn...

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For more ways to engage kids in conversations about civil engineering, check out ASCE's Educators, Parents, and Engineers section.

And for more fun engineering games, don't miss Fidgit and String Thing.



Game on!