Teach Engineering
Fairly Fundamental Facts About Forces and Structures
Don't twist and turn looking for a resource. The first installment of a six-part series teaches young engineers about the five fundamental forces of compression, tension, shear, bending, and torsion. These forces help explain different...
Teach Engineering
Complex Networks and Graphs
Show your class how engineers use graphs to understand large and complex systems. The resource provides the beginnings of graph theory by introducing the class to set theory, graphs, and degree distributions of a graph.
Teach Engineering
Magnetic Materials
The design challenge: develop a method to separate steel from aluminum. The first lesson plan in an eight-part series introduces the class to the grand challenge of ciming up with a method to streamline a sorting process at a recycling...
Teach Engineering
Rube Goldberg and the Meaning of Machines
A Rube Goldberg machine does not really look like it would make work easier. Introduce your class to Rube Goldberg with a resource that shows how his inventions make simple tasks harder to complete.
Kenan Fellows
Designing a Water Treatment Plant
How does dirty water get clean enough to drink? After viewing a PowerPoint that outlines the process water goes through at a water treatment plant, groups work together to design a chlorination chamber for a treatment plant.
NASA
Egg Drop Lander
You have to crack a few eggs to make a good engineer! Working in small groups, young scholars design, build, and test devices that protect an egg from breaking when dropped from a ladder.
Berkeley Engineering and Mentors
Marshmallow Challenge
Here is a lesson in collaboration cleverly disguised as an engineering design activity. There is no background material for you to teach here, just instructions about materials and rules for participating groups. Use this as an...
Berkeley Engineering and Mentors
Bridges
This engineering activity gets youngsters working together to design and construct a bridge. Each bridge is tested in front of the class to discover how much weight it can hold before showing any change in form. The lesson plan does not...
Curated OER
Broken Bones
After reading about biomedical engineering and properties of materials, collaborative groups design a cast for setting a broken bone. They test for stability and mass, and then communicate their invention by creating a poster. This...
Curated OER
Science to Build On
Young scholars examine how professionals use science to solve practical problems. For this scientific process students divide into groups and complete a class activity on building strategies.
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Shipping For Survival
Students explore package engineering and investigate design. In this shipping instructional activity students are given a flower and are to come up with a packaging that will allow the flower to get to its destination as fresh as...
Curated OER
Scooting Along!
Students investigate how Newton's Third Law affects vehicle design. In this Newton's Third Law lesson, students use a web site to research Newton, his third law, and how to design a vehicle that uses a balloon for power. They sketch and...
Curated OER
Build Working Models With household Items
Students follow the illustration, and cut out foam board according to the pattern. They assemble the small parts by gluing. Once the glue is dry, students tape the end of the bottom and top clipper boards, they slide toothpicks through...
Curated OER
Don't Crack Humpty
Students investigate the engineering design process and the relationship between distance, time, and speed. Using a generic car base, small groups design a device that will protect an egg on or in the car as it is rolled down a ramp at...
Curated OER
Engineering: Simple Machines
Fourth graders participate in activities to examine how simple machines help build things. They identify the six types of simple machines. They discover how simple machines where use historically to build pyramids and how they are still...
Curated OER
Vehicle Graphic Organizer
A two-slide presentation shows learners how to design a car. The first slide has them list the color, number of wheels, and a drawing of the vehicle. The second slide has them list all of the materials they will need to build it.
Curated OER
Build a Robot Arm
Students work in teams to design and build a working robotic arm using everyday items. In this building robots instructional activity students develop an understanding of design processes and the impact that technology has in...
Curated OER
Junkyard Wars: Air Movers
Students study Rube Goldberg machines. In this investigative lesson plan students design and build a machine that uses several steps to move an aluminum can.
Curated OER
Egg Drop
Pupils design and test packaging an egg. In this engineering design lesson, students design and test packaging that will keep an egg from cracking when dropped from a certain height.
Curated OER
Design and Build a Tangle-free Headphone Holder
Students design, build and test a device to store headphones without tangling the wires. In this engineering lesson, students view web videos and documents about the design process. They work in groups to brainstorm, research, design,...
Curated OER
The Saturday Morning Superhero:
Students explore the concept of engineering design. In this engineering design process lesson, students read The Saturday Morning Superhero and discuss the problem solving steps that the main character encounters as he creates a...
Curated OER
Let's Build
Students observe and discuss a picture of Curious George building a bridge and discuss what it means to build, plan and design a project. As a class, they list things they need to do in oder to build something and explore how a compass...
Curated OER
Tower Investigation and the Egg
Middle schoolers build three types of towers, engineering them to hold an egg one foot high for 15 seconds. They discover that engineering designs are subject to constraints such as time, money and size specifications. In this activity...
Curated OER
Disassemble a Click Pen
Pupils dissamble and analyze the spring system of a click pen. They analyze a cross-section worksheet, dissamble the pens, fill in the missing parts of the cross-section diagram, and write a description of how the pen works.