Teach Engineering
Solar Power
Elementary schoolers discover how engineers use solar energy to heat buildings. They take a close look at some of the materials used: sand, salt, water, and shredded paper and evaluate the efficiency of each material. An incredible...
Curated OER
Boat Design
Students build a boat and make predictions. In this geometry lesson, students design a cargo boat. They must show that the boat they designed can carry the cargo.
Curated OER
Design a Reef!
Students design a functional model of a coral reef ecosystem. For this coral reef lesson, students identify the energy sources and material cycles of a coral reef. They write an essay about their niche in their own ecosystem.
Curated OER
Building Straw Towers
Students apply their knowledge of technology to help them build. In this science and technology instructional activity, students build straw towers and investigate the strength and form of the structure. They analyze the best design the...
Curated OER
Blindfolded Building
Learners build a Lego design and then work with a partner to reproduce that design. They guide the building of the reproduction by description only and then check their work.
Curated OER
Highway Design for the Future
Eighth graders research highway designs and create a marble maze to illustrate a highway system. They test their designs and write reports defining the project and analyzing the results.
Rochester Institute of Technology
Biomechanical Hand
In 1993, five biomedical engineers in Edinburgh, Scotland, created the first functional bionic arm. In the activity, learners explore the world of bioengineering through discussion and hands-on exploration. In groups, participants...
Curated OER
Barging Along
Students create a barge. In this technological design activity, students use modeling clay to create a barge to hold marbles. Students make their barge then test it to see how many marbles it will hold. Students discuss why their design...
Curated OER
Skyscrapers: Engineering Up!
Middle schoolers 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.
Curated OER
Light Your Way
Learners investigate how a simple series circuit functions. They design and construct a working portable flashlight, develop a written plan for the flashlight, test their flashlight for functionality and reliability, and draw the series...
Curated OER
What Makes a Home "Energy Efficient"?
Students research and report the costs and benefits of making their own homes more energy efficient. In this energy conservation instructional activity, students explore energy efficient technologies and design over several days. They...
Curated OER
If These Walls Could Speak...
Students examine the relationship between history, the use of a given space, and its design. They research the relationship between technology and design while exploring a variety of sources. They study what scale models are and how to...
Curated OER
Minerals - The Building Blocks of Rocks
Students examine how rocks are composed of different minerals. They analyze rock samples, then examine cookies, sorting out the simulated mineral ingredients from the cookies and identifying the mineral ingredients.
Curated OER
Building Understanding of Rate of Change/Slopes Using Alice
Students explore slope as a rate of change. In this eighth grade mathematics lesson, students investigate real-world problems to determine rate of change and transform it into a linear representation, thus determining slope. Students...
Curated OER
Cooking with the Sun
Students explore using energy from the sun for heating and cooking as they build and compare the performance of four solar cooker designs. This excellent two-day lesson has groups of students build and test a variety of solar cookers....
Discovery Education
Sonar & Echolocation
A well-designed, comprehensive, and attractive slide show supports direct instruction on how sonar and echolocation work. Contained within the slides are links to interactive websites and instructions for using apps on a mobile device to...
Intel
Plugging into the Sun
What's cooking? A sizzling STEM unit challenges scholars to build a solar cooker that can successfully cook an egg. The unit opens with a study of Earth's rotation, the sun's energy, and shadows. Pupils use a compass and thermometer to...
Curated OER
Wright Again: 100 Years of Flight
Aspiring aeronautical engineers demonstrate different forces as they construct and test paper airplanes. This lesson plan links you to a website that models the most effective paper airplane design, an animation describing the forces...
Curated OER
Transportation Systems: Two Liter Boat Activity
Students design and build full-size boats made out of two-liter plastic bottles, chicken wire, and plywood. Then they race the boats, with the boat's designers "manning the hull", in the school's swimming pool.
Curated OER
The Mathematics of Convection: Nature's Model for Energy Production
High schoolers conduct a series of experiments to investigate density, buoyancy and climate. In this math instructional activity, pupils design and build a hot air balloon to demonstrate convection. They research and write a paper about...
NASA
The X-1 Paper Glider Kit
After reading an interesting account of how the X-1 aircraft was designed, built, and utilized, young engineers try their hand at constructing a paper glider version of the airplane. They cut out the plane out of a nicely designed...
Curated OER
Wind Power
What a wonderful way to explore wind power! Through this lesson, learners get a background in the history of wind power, create their own wind turbine, and the test their designs. This is a terrific way to tie scientific principles to...
Curated OER
Papyrus to PDA
What a great project. Graphic arts students consider the social, political, and economic impact made by a chosen invention. They build an argument to substantiate their reasons for choosing said invention. They create an oral...
Teach Engineering
You've Got to See it to Believe It!
Youngsters develop an understanding of how smog is produced, and how exhaust from automobiles is one of the major sources of smog. They explore the roles that engineers play in developing technologies that reduce smog, then work in teams...