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Lesson Plan
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

Interactive Gumball Machine

For Teachers 3rd - 12th Standards
Sure, you may be able to build a better mousetrap, but what about a gum dispenser? In a fun engineering challenge, teams must design and build a working interactive gumball machine with specific constraints and criteria.
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Lesson Plan
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

Dispenser Designs

For Teachers 3rd - 12th Standards
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...
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Lesson Plan
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Teach Engineering

Copycat Engineers

For Teachers 6th - 8th Standards
It's often said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Young engineers learn about biomimicry, which uses nature to generate engineering ideas, in the fifth lesson of nine in a Life Science unit. Working in groups, they select...
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Activity
Teach Engineering

Super Slinger Engineering Challenge

For Teachers 6th - 8th Standards
How well can you launch a ping-pong ball? Small groups design launchers that can launch a ping-pong ball 20 feet into a target. The teams follow the engineering design process as they develop a solution that meets the design...
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Unit Plan
Teach Engineering

Service-Based Engineering Design Project

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Do some good for the community while learning about engineering. Groups complete a service-based engineering design project over the course of five weeks. The resource provides guidance on how to conduct the project and help pupils get...
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Lesson Plan
Teach Engineering

Design Step 4: Engineering Analysis

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
What is the main difference between an engineer and a technician?  This is one of the driving questions in a plan that proves that analysis at every step of development is crucial to the engineering design process. The lesson starts with...
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Lesson Plan
Personal Genetics Education Project

Engineering the World Around Us: Genome Editing and the Environment

For Teachers 9th - Higher Ed Standards
Challenge young minds to build a better world with genetic engineering. Biologists learn potential solutions for environmental issues using genome editing while interacting with three case studies. Scholars read articles and view...
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Printables
We are Teachers

NGSS Explained

For Teachers K - 12th
Here is a very attractive and well-designed infographic explaining the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Destination Outer Space

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Students investigate space travel. In this space travel lesson students examine space exploration history, engineers and scientists involved in space exploration, and Newton's third law of motion. Students make rockets.
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Lesson Plan
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American Chemical Society

Chemical Reactions and Engineering Design

For Teachers 6th - 8th Standards
Construction leads to habitat loss and local wildlife suffers. Scholars must build a reptile egg incubation device that meets many constraints. Various experiments help them discover the chemical reaction needed to reach the proper...
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Lesson Plan
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Teach Engineering

Introduction to Environmental Engineering

For Teachers 7th - 9th Standards
A series on environmental engineering introduces the class to issues that environmental engineers work to solve. This first lesson focuses on air and land issues, and looks at ways to reduce pollution.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Skyscrapers: Engineering Up!

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Students build their own newspaper skyscrapers with limited materials and time. They identify several different structural engineering principles relating to skyscrapers. They explain how their towers resisted the wind load.
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Activity
Teach Engineering

Engineers Love Pizza, Too!

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Help overcome challenges in eating pizza. Scholars work in groups to design a device that assists a physically handicapped person eat pizza. They build a prototype of such a device to test their designs before building. To finish, groups...
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Lesson Plan
Kenan Fellows

Electricity: Sources, Usage, Challenges, and the Future

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
What does the future of energy look like? Junior engineers collaborate to discover a solution to the global energy crisis during a very hands-on lesson. The unit focuses on learning through collaboration to develop a deep understanding...
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Activity
DiscoverE

Build a Watershed

For Teachers 3rd - 8th Standards
What's the best way to learn how watersheds work? Build one! Combining engineering, the water cycle, and ecology concerns, the activity is the perfect fit for an interdisciplinary unit. Teams construct a model watershed with simple...
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Lesson Plan
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Teach Engineering

Extinction Prevention via Engineering

For Teachers 5th - 7th Standards
It's time to save endangered species through engineering. The third lesson in a nine-part Life Science unit has young environmentalists study species extinction. An engaging discussion leads to some ideas on how to use engineering design...
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Lesson Plan
Teach Engineering

Working Together to Live Together

For Teachers 8th - 10th Standards
Whose home is it anyway? Design teams plan a housing development in which they must also protect a native species. The teams consist of a project manager, civil engineer, environmental engineer, and graphic designer. Teams present their...
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Activity
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Teach Engineering

Earthquakes Living Lab: Finding Epicenters and Measuring Magnitudes

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Pairs use an online simulation to determine the epicenter and magnitude of an earthquake. Using real data about the earthquake's maximum S wave amplitudes, they then determine the magnitude. The resource provides a great career...
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Activity
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Teach Engineering

Energy Storage Derby and Proposal

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Small groups use the engineering design process to build and test a vehicle capable of carrying 250 grams a distance of five meters. The design must allow for the storage of potential energy and turn it into motion, allowing the...
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Activity
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Teach Engineering

Above-Ground Storage Tank Design Project

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
The challenge: determine whether a tank will float. A design activity has groups work as engineering teams in order to determine the stability of given tanks and liquid contents. The teams need to determine the equations to calculate the...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Fortified Breakfast

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Students reverse engineer a cereal. In this dietary lesson students identify the minerals that the human body needs to function. Students examine how foods are fortified by food engineers. Students find the amount of iron in a cereal by...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Engineering Pop-Ups

For Teachers 5th - 7th
Students explore the art of paper engineering and pop-up-books. They listen to a teacher-led lecture on pop-up books, discuss the process of paper engineering, and plan, design and construct an original pop-up book.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Cleaning Up With Decomposers

For Teachers 3rd - 8th
Students read and discuss decomposers and how they affect the environment. In this decomposers lesson plan, students also discuss how engineers use decomposers to help the environment.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Fantastic Fossils

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Middle schoolers learn about the kinds of fossils and what scientists can learn from them.  In this earth science lesson, students are told how engineers and paleontologists work together.  Then middle schoolers create a "fossil fondue"...