LEGO Education is launching a range of sets for at-home, STEM-based learning, with four sets available now.
Four new, at-home LEGO Education sets are available now on LEGO.com. It’s a big change for this significant part of the LEGO Group as the educational part of the organisation usually provides boxes directly to institutions for classroom learning. With decades of experience in curriculum based educational tools though, the company should know how to deliver worthwhile products, so these could be great for parents.
The sets are:
- 45200 Moon Mission Science Kit, 519 pieces, £44.99 / $49.99 / €49.99
- 45201 Antarctic Animals Science Kit, 461 pieces, £44.99 / $49.99 / €49.99
- 45202 Mars Mission Science Kit, 933 pieces, £89.99 / $99.99 / €99.99
- 45203 Arctic Animals Science Kit, 1,134 pieces, £89.99 / $99.99 / €99.99
If you’d like an in-depth look at all the sets, you can head here. For now, we’ll take a look at the range as a whole — what sets LEGO Education apart from regular LEGO sets; why this is a shift for the theme; and the potential of brick-based learning at home.
To get the second question out of the way first, this is the first time that LEGO Education sets have been available for at-home purchase. Some of the previous SPIKE-based sets were available on LEGO.com, but with institution-sized price tags, they weren’t really intended for at-home use. The launch follows the changes that LEGO Education is making to the FIRST LEGO League and retirement of SPIKE. But with lower prices for these four new sets, what’s the value for parents looking to encourage learning at home?
All four sets are designed around STEM education — two focusing on life sciences and animal studies, and two shooting for the stars and some serious mathematical questions. Regular LEGO sets obviously can encourage interest in these areas — there’s been a particular focus on space in recent years — but LEGO Education sets go a step further and make problem solving a priority.
What are at-home LEGO Education sets?
45202 Mars Mission Science Kit 
45203 Arctic Animals Science Kit 
45201 Antarctic Animals Science Kit 
45200 Moon Mission Science Kit
Each set comes with two to four science experiments, focused on either life science or physical science, depending on which type of set your child has. The experiments come in the form of building challenges that are designed to fit the theme of each kit. So 45202 Mars Mission Science Kit will be focused on establishing a functioning colony on Mars while 45203 Arctic Animals Science Kit will be more interested in finding creative ways to study the included animals and inspire the zoologists of tomorrow.
The experiments in LEGO Education sets aren’t your typical paper mâché volcano experiments — they’re building challenges. For example, 45201 Antarctic Animals Science Kit asks children to design a course for a penguin to slide down into the desired spot and help a whale catch its dinner, teaching about how the animals live through fun, creative play opportunities. So if you’re looking for a hardcore experiment, LEGO Education isn’t that. Instead, it offers ways for children to combine their love of LEGO building with their other interests in a way that’s more explicitly educational than a typical LEGO set.
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Do LEGO Education sets come with teaching materials?
Whether or not the new range of LEGO Education sets will come with supplemental teaching materials is unfortunately not clear from the provided images and information. The instruction booklets do contain comics alongside most (if not all) steps that provide some context to what is being built, like scientists studying animal droppings in 45203 Arctic Animals Science Kit. But these comics appear to be without text, and if there is any additional explanatory content is unclear for now.
Why do LEGO Education boxes look like that? Are they different than regular LEGO sets?
LEGO Education sets are following a box design first used by LEGO Hidden Side in 2019, that is using a stylised version of the product on the front and saving the actual bricks for the back. This doesn’t mean that there’s anything different with the actual bricks, though. The models might be designed for problem-solving and teaching, but they still are all regular LEGO bricks. So any child who’s an avid LEGO builder will be able to jump right into this new range of educational sets and apply their LEGO building skills to the unique challenges presented by the sets. The different box art is just a cheeky bit of marketing.
Blocks’ review team is keen to get its hands on all these sets to give them a proper, in-hand analysis and provide you with everything you need to know about the range. Stay tuned to Blocks magazine’s Reviews section for that and watch this space for any more information as it becomes available.
For now, if you’d like to go in-depth with the set images and get some initial thoughts, you can check out Blocks’ look at all the new sets.
If you’re interested in purchasing any of these new LEGO Education sets, please consider doing so via our affiliate links to help support the work we do here at Blocks, online and in print.
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