Mission to Mars STEM Challenge Engineering Design Lab Space Activity

Turn your classroom into Mission Control with this exciting, hands-on STEM challenge! In this engaging engineering activity, students become aerospace engineers as they design, build, test, and improve a landing system to protect a fragile payload during a simulated Mars landing.

This standards-aligned engineering lab goes far beyond a simple egg drop. Students will investigate real Mars missions, work within design constraints, collect and analyze data, revise their prototypes, and defend their solutions using Claim-Evidence-Reasoning (CER).

Perfect for middle school and high school science, this activity promotes collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving while reinforcing key concepts such as forces, gravity, energy transfer, engineering design, and space exploration.

What’s Included?

✅ Student Engineering Lab Packet

• Mission scenario
• Mars landing background reading
• Vocabulary support
• Variables section
• Materials planning page
• Brainstorming and blueprint pages
• Testing procedures
• Data tables
• Redesign pages
• CER writing page
• Mission debrief questions

✅ Teacher Guide

• Objectives and NGSS alignment
• Materials list and prep tips
• Teacher notes
• Sample answers
• Differentiation ideas
• CER sentence starters
• Extension activities
• Cleanup plan

✅ Bonus Resources

• Printable Space Credits
• Engineering Budget System
• Mission Scorecard
• Sample Prototype Gallery

Students Will:

• Explore the challenges of landing on Mars
• Apply the engineering design process
• Design and build a prototype
• Test, analyze, and redesign their solution
• Write a CER response using evidence from their results

Topics Covered

• Mars exploration
• Engineering design process
• Forces and motion
• Gravity
• Energy transfer
• Variables
• Data analysis
• Scientific reasoning

Perfect For:

✔ STEM Challenges
✔ Engineering Design Units
✔ Space Exploration Units
✔ NGSS Lessons
✔ Middle School Science
✔ High School Earth & Space Science
✔ Physical Science
✔ End-of-Unit Projects

Students love the creativity and challenge, and teachers love the strong science connections, built-in critical thinking, and easy-to-use format.

⭐ Looking for quality resources and time-saving tips for your secondary science classroom?
☑ Follow Spectacular Science on TPT
☑ Subscribe to My Newsletter
☑ Check Out My Blog
☑ Follow Me on Instagram

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask.
Thanks for visiting!
Jessica