Teams of young scholars learn about the engineering design process as they design, build, and test a model canoe made with everyday materials. Lesson focuses on how materials engineering has impacted the manufacturing of canoes over time.

As learners learn more about the manufacturing process, they use what they learned from testing their designs in the previous activity to continue to improve and redesign. Students also have the opportunity to manufacture their final...

Students act as Mars exploratory rover engineers, designing, building and displaying their edible rovers to a design review. To begin, they evaluate rover equipment and material options to determine which parts might fit in their given...

In this math activity, students conduct a strength test using modeling clay, creating their own stress vs. strain graphs, which they compare to typical steel and concrete graphs. They learn the difference between brittle and ductile...

Students use a table-top-sized tsunami generator to observe the formation and devastation of a tsunami. They see how a tsunami moves across the ocean and what happens when it reaches the continental shelf. Students make villages of model...

In this activity, students explore the concept of "reducing" solid waste and how it relates to product packaging and engineering advancements in packaging materials. Students read about and evaluate the highly publicized packaging...

Students will learn about composite materials, tension as a force and how they act on structural components through the design and testing of a strip of plastic chair webbing.

Students investigate what types of materials biodegrade in the soil, and learn what happens to their trash after they throw it away. The concepts of landfills and compost piles will be explained, and the students will have an opportunity...

Beginning kindergarteners are introduced to science and engineering concepts through questions such as "What is a Scientist?" and "What is an Engineer?", and go on to compare and contrast the two. They are introduced to five steps of the...

Students are introduced to two real-life problems that can be solved by using the engineering design process. For the first one, they watch a slide presentation that shows how students use the engineering design process to build an...

This lesson plan is based on the book Big Smelly Bear by Britta Teckentrup. In the book, a big, smelly bear has an itch in the middle of his back and can't scratch it. Nothing the bear tries works. Using the Engineering Design Process,...

In this activity, the students will learn about material properties. They will learn that engineers must consider several material properties when designing. This activity focuses on strength-to-weight ratios and how sometimes the...

Students are introduced to the concepts of stress and strain with examples that illustrate the characteristics and importance of these forces in our everyday lives. They explore the factors that affect stress, why engineers need to know...

To introduce the two types of stress that materials undergo - compression and tension - students examine compressive and tensile forces and learn about bridges and skyscrapers. They construct their own building structure using...

In this activity, students will design and create their own heart valves out of a variety of materials given to them, including: waterproof tape, plastic tubing, flexible plastic sheets, foam sheets, scissors, clay, etc. This activity...

Students learn about the engineering design process by working in teams to design and build a pen out of everyday materials that can deliver a controlled amount of ink to a sheet of paper.

Students will be challenged to design and construct a tower out of newspaper. They will have limited supplies including newspaper, tape, and scissors since engineers are often restricted by economic reasons as to how much material they...

Imagining themselves arriving at the Olympic gold medal soccer game in Beijing, students begin to think about how engineering is involved in sports. After a discussion of kinetic and potential energy, an associated hands-on activity...

Students gain an understanding of the difference between electrical conductors and insulators, and experience recognizing a conductor by its material properties. In a hands-on activity, students build a conductivity tester to determine...

The focus of this civil engineering lesson is on designing, building, and testing an irrigation system made from everyday materials to move water from one place to another.

In this activity, students work with specified materials to create aqueduct components that will transport 2 liters of water across a short distance in their classroom. The goal is to build an aqueduct that will supply Aqueductis, a...

Students will conduct several simple lab activities to learn about the five fundamental load types that can act on structures: tension, compression, shear, bending, and torsion. In this activity, students break foam insulation blocks by...

Middle schoolers learn about the types of possible loads, how to calculate ultimate load combinations, and investigate the different sizes for the beams (girders) and columns (piers) of simple bridge design. Students learn the steps that...

In this lesson, students expand their understanding of solid waste management to include the idea of 3RC (reduce, reuse, recycle and compost). They will look at the effects of packaging decisions (reducing) and learn about engineering...