We are exploring a new STEM project this week.  We are working on a Hands-On Standards STEM in Action lesson called Muddy Mats.  In this project a boy named Liam wants to engineer a mat so his wet dog can come in the house and not make a mess on the carpet.  Today we read the story and discussed the problem and some solutions they use at their homes for this problem. We discussed how this type of engineering is material engineering. We reviewed how we have already done a materials engineering unit and discussed our schema on what helped us solve that project.  Then we started our first lesson to build our knowledge on how waters properties will be important in this build.