2025/2026 Curriculum Library
The PORT-Able Learning Lab offers immersive learning and classroom experiences for grades K-12. Inside the lab, students explore science, technology, engineering, and math through immersive reality, interactive games, and collaborative challenges. The onboard experience is accompanied by classroom activities. These activities provide authentic, real-world learning co-developed with teachers and STEM industry subject matter experts. The in-classroom program provides instructors, plus all necessary supplies, equipment, and technology. All activity handouts and materials will be provided at the teacher pre-visit.
Onboard PORT-Able Learning Lab Experiences
Breakout Box: Environmental Mission: Grades 9-12
The Port of Corpus Christi’s Environmental Mission takes high school students on an immersive adventure using computational thinking and the practices of science and engineering to crack a series of puzzles to help the Environmental Team decide on mitigations for a new client site. From the moment they step inside this custom-built 22-foot shipping container, students experiment with augmented reality, game-based learning, and touchscreen walls, building their critical thinking, collaboration, and problem-solving skills.
Breakout Box: Body Systems Mission: Grades 6-8
The Breakout Box: Body Systems Mission takes middle school students on an immersive adventure using computational thinking and the practices of science and engineering to crack a series of puzzles to restore lost data in the abandoned Drop Anywhere Lab. Through progressive gameplay, students work as a team to analyze and interpret data in a cardiovascular simulation, selecting food, exercise, and insulin options to manipulate blood glucose concentration in diabetic and non-diabetic patients over time. Students also analyze and interpret data as they learn about concentration using plasma vials, interpreting graphs, and supporting a claim with reasoning and evidence.
Chemical & Physical Changes: Grades 4-8
Students view and collect information via video of a reaction. As a group, students make claims and use evidence to form arguments as to whether a presented reaction was a physical or chemical change. The experience uses projection mapping and interactive screens to provide students with an immersive game experience.
Engineering in Agriculture: Grades K-3
Students explore topics from seasons, weather, and ecosystem management through the lens of the engineering design process. Through interactive gameplay and team collaboration, students help a farmer to solve a few of the problems they’ve encountered. As a group, students decide on which solution(s) to implement, keeping in mind their constraint (budget) and their criteria (goal). The experience uses projection mapping and interactive screens to provide students with an immersive game experience.
Classroom Activities
K-2 Activities
- Floating Zoo: Inspired by Who Sank the Boat?, students become engineers and build a boat that can hold animal figures without sinking — with bonus points for holding a horse too!
- Grow a Garden: After hearing a story, students plant their own seed gardens and learn about the plant life cycle from sprout to harvest.
Grades 3-5 Activities
- Coast to Coast: Maintaining Healthy Habits: Students explore ecosystems by removing invasive species and then design tools to restore ecological balance.
- Renewable Innovators: Wind Turbine Blades: Students design and build wind turbines capable of harnessing wind energy to lift a small weight, learning about sustainable energy in the process.
Grades 6-8 Activities
- Forces in Action: Crane Design: Students design prosthetic limbs to help injured animals regain mobility using the engineering design process.
- Where Did the Sugar Go?: Students explore how sugar moves through the body and how diabetes is managed through meal planning, monitoring, and exercise in interactive stations.
- Rescue and Design: Engineering meets compassion as students design mobility solutions for injured animals at a rescue center.
Grades 9-12 Activities
- Acoustic Shields: Students tackle underwater construction noise pollution by designing a bubble curtain for a port, applying real-world gas laws and presenting their solutions.
- Plastic Patrol: Students engineer a trash skimmer attachment for a 3D-printed boat to combat plastic pollution and restore a coastal city’s marine ecosystem.
