After a brief lecture on levers, torque, projectiles, and the five-step engineering design cycle, young physical science learners or engineers build catapults out of craft sticks. This is an open-ended exploration of what works and what...

Learners use materials to build, investigate, and draw two-dimensional shapes (polygons). They combine the shapes they have built and draw from the pile to begin a round-robin activity to name and determine the attributes of a selection...

Groups work together to design a lighthouse, from designing and drawing the wiring diagram, to creating prototypes of the switch and circuit, to envisioning and building a scale model along with a blueprint. By including different...

Design and build a rover ... then eat it? This activity has groups of two design and build Mars rovers. The teams determine what instruments they want to include with their rover and plan a budget. They calculate the cost of the body of...

Build a patio from toothpicks and marshmallows to analyze functions! Learners look for patterns in the data as they create different size patios. As they discover patterns, they make connections between the different representations of...

Here's a new twist in the egg drop competition. Using only six inches of tape, four straws, and 2 pieces of newspaper, teams build a structure that keeps an egg from breaking when dropped. What's different about this project is that the...

Second graders investigate how to help a city building remain cooler on the inside. They create a rooftop garden in order to shield the building and lower the internal temperature. The garden is meant to replace the black tar paper that...

Help your class master the important concept of critical load. Pupils work together to build a structure using 12 playing cards. They test the critical load of the structure using pennies or paper clips.

Clay's as good a material as any to build a boat, right? An introductory lesson sets the stage for two activities associated with buoyancy. The first involves building boats out of clay, while the second uses these boats to measure the...

In a previous instructional activity, learners build an ammeter. That ammeter, or a pre-made one, is required in order to carry out this instructional activity. The objective is for lab groups to design a way to connect solar cells that...

Young engineers work in teams to design and build their own trebuchets according to certain criteria; they must be able to launch a mini marshmallow accurately into a pie tin. Background reading material, a planning sheet for trebuchet...

Explore what it takes to service the Hubble telescope. In the set of three activities, groups investigate several aspects of the Hubble telescope, including robotic arms used during repairs, spacesuits, and extravehicular activity (EVA)...

Ready, aim, fire! Launch to a new level of understanding as scholars build and test their own catapults. Learners explore lever design and how adjusting the fulcrum changes the outcome. 

Can you do better than a robot? Teams write instructions for a hypothetical robot to build a structure. They test their instructions by acting them out to see if they produce the desired structure.

Challenge small groups to build a structure that catches a raw egg without breaking—working collaboratively and applying mathematical and engineering principles. Pretending the frame was made by a business, scholars create a marketing...

Whatever floats your boat—with some additional weight. The first activity in a five-part series challenges pupils to design a boat to hold pennies. Using the design process, learners design, build, and test their boats, making sure they...

Apply geometric properties and formulae for surface area and volume by constructing a three-dimensional model of a city. Learners use similar and congruent figures and transformations to create a city of at least 10 buildings. They trade...

How can you tell if something is made of metal? Use a table of data and a science experiment to determine which items are made of metal. The experiment requires adult supervision, as it instructs third graders to build an electrical...

Challenge your class to use their understanding of the engineering design process to design and build a small-scale, off-road prototype for an assistive technology device. Teams select materials to build their scale models, and, using...

Build a bridge to learning in a STEM-aligned unit about urban infrastructure. Young engineers explore the many aspects of civil planning and design in a five-day unit. Content includes the challenging aspects of balancing building with...

Launch pupil interest in rockets. Scholars build rockets out of straws and balloons to learn about Newton's Third Law of Motion. Their task is to hit a target five feet away. It's not as easy as it seems!

You've probably heard of solar-powered cars, but what about wind-powered cars? Scholars build cars that can travel at least six feet. They can only use their breath to move the car—so, obviously, a sail might be a good feature for the...

Homes come in many different shapes and sizes. Building a model of a geodesic dome is the ultimate goal for the activity. Cutting and folding is the way to go here.

Potentially get all the way across the water. The fourth of five design challenges asks pupils to develop a plan for a paddle-powered boat that will store its energy. Given a limited number of supplies, the class members design, build,...