Welcome

Welcome to Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science's STEM Challenge! This year-long challenge engages middle and high school students and teachers in a STEM focused investigation. Each year, a common theme is chosen as a lens through which students explore real-world questions developed by experts in these fields. The theme for the 2025-2026 STEM Challenge is “Innovating with Technology to Advance Science.” Within this theme, students choose a focus discipline (track) aligned to one of the museum’s core science disciplines: marine science, health, astronomy and paleontology. Students then work towards answering one of these questions by creating a model of their designed solution.

As part of the STEM Challenge, participating teachers and mentors are asked to submit their top student projects from each of their participating classes, extracurriculars, or programs. Teachers and mentors will use this Fourwaves site to submit these student projects.

Submissions

STEM Challenge submissions must include:

A digital version of the student's display. This could be a photograph of a poster, a link to a video, etc.
A digital version of the student's model. This should include multiple photographs or a link to a video of the student's model.
A Design History File that records the development of the student's model. This can include multiple screenshots or photographs of the student's model, each accompanied by a short description.

On all submitted content, student and school names should be hidden to avoid potential bias when judging. There should be no identifiable information in the digital submissions. For displays, student and school names can be hidden with paper, digitally removed from photographs, or otherwise obscured. Additionally, no students should be visible in any of the submitted project materials.

Location

The submission process and Round 1 of judging will occur virtually via Fourwaves. Forty-five student projects will then be selected by our judges to move onto Round 2 of judging, which will occur in-person at Frost Science during the STEM Challenge Expo on April 18, 2026. Teachers and mentors will be notified if their students have moved onto Round 2 of judging by April 6.

Registration period:

Submission period: