Teach Engineering
Design Inspired by Nature
Let nature guide your engineering designs. By taking apart a flower, pupils learn about reverse engineering. They use the results to brainstorm designs for new products or ideas. This is the seventh installment of a nine-part Life...
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Dispenser Designs
After reading about the history of tape dispensers, learners compare and contrast different dispenser designs. Next, teams work within budgetary and time constraints to design a better dispenser. When finished, each engineer reflects on...
Discovery Education
Design a Shoe
If the shoe doesn't fit, design a new one. Discovery Education challenges pupils to put the engineering process in action by designing a shoe. Groups design and build a shoe prototype based upon the client constraints outlined in the...
Curated OER
Turn It Upside Down: Introduction to Computer-Aided Design
Students explore a computer-aided design program. Students chart out roller coaster design, computer graphics and architecture. Students focus on understanding the connections between mathematics, science, technology and innovation.
Teach Engineering
Design a Flying Machine
Wrap up the unit in one final design. Pairs use their knowledge of aviation to design new flying machines and record how their designs take into consideration the forces that act upon airplanes. The pupils determine whether their designs...
Curated OER
The Engineering Design Process
Design your own video game, engineer accident-proof highways, or even develop a new phone app! The Engineering Design Model can be used with all ages and in all subject areas to create a product, system or service. The resource explains...
Intel
Understanding the Design Process
Can you build a better mousetrap? Broken into two sessions, this plan introduces learners to the design process. The first session has pupils look at the world through a design perspective by redesigning everyday objects. In the second...
Indiana Department of Education
The Represented World: Communication—Packaging
Challenge your classes to design and market a new product. Collaborative groups use geometry skills to create packaging for their products. Finally, they plan a marketing strategy to present to a marketing specialist.
Curated OER
Petro Products
In this petroleum products worksheet, students are given the components of crude oil and they graph the various products found in a 50 gallon barrel. Students complete an activity to determine if they have collected cards that represent...
Rochester Institue of Technology
Ergonomic Design
To an engineer, the glass is never half full; it's just double the necessary size. The fifth installment of a nine-part technology and engineering series teaches pupils about the idea of ergonomic design. Measurements of popliteal height...
Discovery Education
Market Research and Design: The Headphone Challenge
Watch augmented reality bring classrooms to life. Scholars work in groups to design, build, and market a new pair of headphones meant for children under three. They use an augmented reality app to show their headphones in action as they...
Teach Engineering
Building-Testing-Improving Paper Airplanes: Head's Up!
Take foldables to all new heights. Pupils build and fly different types of paper airplanes in the 14th portion of a 22-part unit on aviation. Groups collect data on distance and flight time for each plane and compare the data from the...
Curated OER
Logo Design Basics: School ID
Students design a new logo for their school. In this graphic design instructional activity, students learn the fundamentals of logo design and how to incorporate the needs of the client in design development. Students design a new school...
Curated OER
Inventions in Everyday Life
Students identify and solve problems as they modify the design of an everyday household item. They gather and analyze information and work in collaborative teams to create a design plan for a new product.
Curated OER
Protective Design
Over 3 or 4 class periods your young designers will create a wearable garment that provides some sort of protection from a danger in everyday life. In this fashion design lesson, young scholars investigate fear in our society and...
Curated OER
Design Your Own Building
Students explore the use of design principles in the real world. They evaluate how problems can be solved using design principles. In groups, students design the floor plan for a building of their choice.
Teach Engineering
Design Step 5: Construct a Prototype
Enough with the talking, let's build something! In the fifth step in the engineering design process, young engineers build a prototype to test their ideas. The instructional activity walks them through the process of evaluating it...
Curated OER
Our Client Is The Cincinnat Art Museum
Students design various commercial products for the Cincinnati Art Museum using on-line sources, past designs, and creative educational software. This instructional activity has excellent project ideas for various student levels...
Curated OER
Group Product-Pitch Presentation
Are you just about to teach persuasion in your class? If so, you should consider this short unit. In small groups, learners create a product, develop a magazine ad for the product, and pitch this product to the class using a visual...
California Academy of Science
Our Hungry Planet: Design Thinking Challenge
Scholars investigate an issue associated with food systems and design their own solutions. Working collaboratively, they follow each step in the design process to complete the 10th lesson of the 13-part Our Hungry Planet series.
Curated OER
Great Depression and New Deal
The five activities outlined in this resource packet engage class members in projects that ask them to research the causes and the effects, both national and local, of the Great Depression and the New Deal policies of FDR.
DiscoverE
Tape Dispenser Challenge
Help your class get out of a sticky situation! Future engineers explore existing tape dispensers and then design a new system for dispensing tape. To put these systems to the test, they build and evaluate prototypes of their designs.
Curated OER
The DIY: A Hands-On Look at the New Industrial Revolution
Upper graders explore the new industrial revolution and how the tech boom in recent years is similar and different to the Industrial Revolution of the past. They watch a video, explore web sites, and discuss what they see. They work...
Code.org
Introducing Design Mode
Move beyond buttons when designing user interfaces. In the fourth installment of a 21-part unit, young computer scientists learn to apply design mode, which gives users options for colors, fonts, etc. They learn to incorporate these...