5 Flower-Filled STEM Activities to Welcome Spring

Spring is the season best known for new beginnings, presenting a great opportunity to explore new interests and try new things. As nature is renewed with plants emerging from the soil, fresh air and budding flowers, there are plenty of springtime-inspired activities to welcome the season and experiment with STEM.

As we anticipate this joyful season, we invite you to explore the wonder and science of flowers in these hands-on activities, where kids can discover the blooming effects of springtime.

Fizzy Flowers

Creating fizzy flowers is a wonderful opportunity to make observations like a real scientist! Embrace your child’s inner chemist in this sensory-rich activity by combining flowers, baking soda and vinegar in a tray or bin. Enjoy the instant satisfaction as flowers bubble up after mixing vinegar and baking soda. This engaging STEM activity creates playful fizzing that sparks curiosity about chemical reactions.

Magic Blooming Flower

This STEAM activity combines the magic of science and art in just a few simple steps. After folding squares of paper into flowers, children will be amazed as they watch their flowers magically “bloom” when they place them in water. From tissue paper to cardstock, you can explore how the fibers of different kinds of paper absorb water, swell and expand – making your paper flower open.

Investigate the Science of Flowers

Looking for a brilliant way to study how flowers grow? Starting with just a tiny seed, a damp paper towel and a sandwich bag, children can investigate the science of flowers and grasp important concepts of the plant life cycle. This classic STEM activity is a core memory for many children as they patiently wait for their flower to sprout from a seed, taking notes along the way to detail its progress.

The Buzz on Pollination

Create a pollination prototype to ensure a future full of flowering plants! This activity is the perfect challenge to apply creativity and design thinking by using upcycled materials to create a pollination device. By learning about the importance of pollination and how it works, children can decide how to maintain the populations of pollinators for years to come. This activity also offers a fascinating history lesson about National Inventors Hall of Fame^® Inductee Lorenzo Langstroth, who invented the modern beehive.

Color-Changing Flowers Experiment

This artful science activity is the perfect visual lesson on the vascular system of plants and how they transport or “drink” water. After gathering a variety of white flowers, children can place each one in a vase of water and simply add food coloring to watch how the flower absorbs the colored water through its stem, causing its petals to change color.

Explore More Exciting STEM Activities

As springtime makes its way to your backyard, we hope you enjoy the magic of STEM with plenty of blooming inspiration. Want to explore more of nature through STEM? Keep exploring our blog for more fun activity ideas.