Here is a wonderful activity that allows young engineers to try their hand at designing a bridge out of spaghetti! The worksheet explains the activity and also provides a graph for keeping track of the results. Very good!

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.

Let's see how complicated we can make this simple task. The last activity associated with a 10-part series has groups design and build a Rube Goldberg machine. Teams determine a simple task to accomplish and use the engineering design...

What would it take to live on the lunar surface? Small groups build model rockets in order to simulate launching a habitat into space and rebuilding it. Divide the class into groups to design and build a model of a lunar habitat. The...

Challenge young learners to cut the clutter with this fun engineering project. As employees of a home and office supply company, young engineers are asked to develop devices that organize everyday items. After participating in a...

Forget your local meteorologist — build your own barometer and keep track of the weather with an activity that provides directions to build a barometer out of a narrow necked bottle, a glass, and some water. Using their barometer,...

Wind it up and let it go. Individuals build a basic spool racer in the second portion of a six-part unit on energy. After receiving three criteria, pupils modify their designs to meet the new challenge. Pairs compete against each other...

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...

There's an app for that! Pupils learn to build an app that will store data on an Android. The lesson introduces class members to the tiny database, TinyDB, for Android devices. A video tutorial provides an example that uses the...

Japan is one of only a handful of countries that constructs buildings that are almost earthquake proof. The 13th lesson in the 20-part series challenges scholars to build structures to test against earthquakes. With limited materials and...

Extra, extra, read all about it! Use a newspaper as the primary resource in a special education classroom to teach reading, writing, and math skills. The activities help class members build their reading skills as well as their...

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 lesson walks them through the process of evaluating it step-by-step....

How high did the ball go? Engineering teams build a working pneumatic system that launches a ball into the air. The teams vary the amount of pressure and determine the accompanying height of the ball. An extension of building a device to...

Kindergartners listen to a story read by their teacher, then use magnetic shape pieces to construct simple designes. They "build" their own house using pre-cut paper shapes. This age-appropriate lesson would be an excellent choice for...

Students examine how professionals use science to solve practical problems.  In this scientific process students divide into groups and complete a class activity on building strategies.

Your class will be blown away when they build their own city tower structure! Engineering scholars partner up to plan, build, and test their own paper towers. As they build, they gain valuable design skills, learn about wind tunnel...

Give household materials new life by turning them into a plankton net. Scholars design and build a net to collect and filter plankton from water. They test out their creations by using glitter to represent plankton. The nets need to...

Just this once, it's okay to throw things in class. Out of craft sticks and rubber bands, pupils build catapults to launch an object of choice. This can be a ping-pong ball, a marshmallow, or any other small item. As long as it hits the...

Let the good times roll as young thrill seekers build a roller coaster on school grounds. Future engineers design and build a roller coaster from flexible tubing. The roller coaster is for a marble, so there will be plenty of room to let...

Every child's dream: stuffing as much candy into a bag as possible. Doing this, though, requires a nice sturdy bag. Scholars design the sturdiest bag they can and test the limits of those bag using a sweet treat!

After reading about how wind turbines work to collect clean energy, groups brainstorm and design their own windmill. Within the provided financial and physical constraints, groups must build a working windmill using only the materials...

After reading up on the history of sports racquets, engineering teams design and construct a racquet for batting a Velcro-striped ball at a target. Teams evaluate their design by aiming for the target three times each and answering...

Small groups work together to create a tower out of 15 pipe cleaners under a set of imposed limitations. First, restrict team members to use only one arm, and then remove the use of spoken language. There is also a time limit. The...

To begin the learning about dams, learners read (or are read to, depending on the age group) a passage about how dams work. Next, they work in groups to use the materials provided to build a small scale working dam. After the experience,...