STEM: 3D St. Peter's Basilica

I know that STEM is more than building 3D puzzles, it's doing math, engineering, science and technology.  Using all those things.  I get that.  :)  The way I see it though is... 3D Puzzles are engineering and technology.  The science eh... perhaps a bit iffy and the math well.. not really other than the need to finesse the puzzle as sometimes the pieces don't fit perfectly.   So how do I add that to make this a proper STEM activity?

We can pick up the science and the math through reading and video can we not?

For instance I liked this video because it taught us to take care when looking at history, that looking at it from different perspectives broadens our knowledge.

And we can see the science and math of how they were built though videos like this:

Which broadens our understanding as we build a 3D Puzzle. 

What did we learn about St. Peter's Basilica?

•  commissioned by Pope Julius II
• started in 1506 and completed in 1615
• originally designed around the shape of a Greek cross, this was later changed to a Latin cross 
• Michelango was a chief architect

And because video is more interesting to listen to and occasionally watch while building heres's another video.

So building a 3D puzzle can indeed be a STEM project. :)   You just need to work around what it isn't eh?  :)

This build wasn't an easy one to do. The pieces were sticky and quite a few of them needed to be trimmed in order to fit into the holes probably.  It tested the patience of the lad and I quite a bit.