Passover Learning and Engaging Students with STEAM

When you say the word Passover to anyone who is hosting Passover, they will probably begin to panic that they have not started their Passover shopping, cooking, and cleaning yet. For teachers, Passover begins the day after Purim ends. They are busy teaching their students the sources on the Haggadah, the songs sung at the seder, creating decorative matzah covers and even planning model seders. In February, I ran a workshop on infusing STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) into the Judaic studies classroom. At the top of this post, you can see a picture from the workshop where participants created matzah packaging. We discussed ways of incorporation STEAM into a Passover curriculum. We wanted to share some of these ideas with you as you are preparing for Passover in your classroom and looking for new ways to engage your students.
 

Digital Haggadah and Resources:

• Sefaria 

• Mercava
   

Passover Activities and Games:

• Jewish Interactive’s Pesach Hub    

• https://jitap.net/activities/
   

Rube Goldberg Machine:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR9YWsFDx3Q

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOpryQ_tmUs
   

Engineering:

• The Matzah Challenge

• Cup Stacking Challenge: (you can adapt this and use sheets of matzah instead)
   

Science and Math:

• http://milwaukeejewish.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/PJE-XLVI.pdf (see page 7 of this workbook for math and science ideas)

Wishing you a Happy Passover!

Monica Brandwein is Monica Brandwein is an Education Technology Consultant for DigitalJLearning at The Jewish Education Project.