In Stuffed Animal Space Suit, elementary students complete a series of hands-on engineering challenges to create a "functional" prototype space suit for a stuffed animal, including both design and testing stages. These activities provide practice with the engineering design process and correlate with specific Engineering & Technology content standards, part of the science curriculum in North Dakota. You can find a list of specific standards below, quoted from the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction:

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• "Analyze data from tests of two objects designed to solve the same problem to compare the strengths and weaknesses of how each performs" (K-2-ET1-3).

• "Generate and compare multiple possible solutions to a problem based on how well each is likely to meet the criteria and constraints of the problem" (3-ET1-2, 5-ET1-2).

• "Define a simple design problem reflecting a need or a want that includes specified criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost" (4-ET1-1, 5-ET1-1).

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In addition to completing the design challenges, students view a virtual tour of the Space Suit Lab, part of the Human Spaceflight Laboratory on the UND campus. The activities on this site are a great supplement to any in-person field trip to the Space Suit Lab. Students can reflect on the challenges and successes they had designing a space suit for a stuffed animal and think ahead about questions they might have about how Space Studies researchers and students design real space suits.