Build a Snowboarder Snowboarding Winter Olympic Games STEM Activity

Bring the excitement of the Winter Olympic Games into your classroom with this Snowboarding Winter Games STEM challenge .

In this hands-on snowboarding STEM activity, students design and build a snowboard and rider, then race their creations down a ramp while exploring force, motion, friction, and weight.

It’s the perfect Winter Olympics inspired STEM challenge for January/February science lessons, STEM labs, or upper elementary engineering units.

What Students Do

• Learn key snowboarding vocabulary such as snowboard, slope, balance, and helmet using kid-friendly picture cards.
• Explore how snowboarding works—riders stand sideways, slide down snowy slopes, and turn by leaning and shifting weight.
• Engineer a snowboard and snowboarder using popsicle sticks, straws, pipe cleaners, tape, and carefully chosen weights (washers, nuts, pennies).
• Think critically about friction and weight by deciding which materials to put on the bottom of the board and how heavy their design should be.
• Race their snowboards down a classroom ramp or playground slide in head-to-head heats to see which reaches the bottom first.
• Read an informational passage titled “What is Snowboarding?” and answer comprehension questions about Olympic snowboarding events and famous athletes.
• Reflect on their learning and write about “What I Know About Snowboarding” using differentiated writing pages.

What’s Included

• Teacher instructions with materials list, build guidelines, and race setup tips, plus ideas for tournament-style competition.
• Full-color and blackline Engineering Design Process posters and guiding questions (Ask, Imagine, Plan, Create, Test, Improve, Share).
• A Makerspace consumables list to help stock your STEM cart with easy-to-find supplies.
• Vocabulary cards and “How Snowboarding Works” mini posters for whole-group or small-group instruction.
• Student challenge letter setting the scene: students are helping prepare for a winter competition by designing a fast, low-friction snowboard.
• Planning page for the Snowboarding Winter Games challenge and multiple “What I Know About Snowboarding” writing templates.
• Reading response sheet with questions tied to the informational text about Olympic snowboarding.