Sounds like the Lego thing has drifted into the soulless doldrums of the modern educational system. Writing reports about the environment? WTF?
Give the kids an Arduino Mega, a servo controller, 12 servos and some balsa wood and tell them "build something fun". I build arduino based robots and...oddities. I have a sonar guided hexapod that most kids describe as "Coooool!". If you want any help getting started in that direction, PM me. Fun for kids....fun for dad too!
Adafruit is a fantastic resource of all things DIY that blink.
https://www.adafruit.com/