Curated OER
Modern Day Pyramids
Learners investigate the ways in which ancient technologies - six types of simple machines and combinations - are used to construct modern buildings. As they work together to solve a design problem (designing and building a modern...
Teach Engineering
Racing With the Sun - Creating a Solar Car
Here's an exciting and innovative lesson that's sure to get your charges fired up! In it, they use engineering design principles to construct and test a fully solar powered car. One caveat: the kits that each group needs to make their...
Curated OER
Physical Science: The Three Billy Goats Gruff
Explore science through problem solving and learning how to solve the problem of the story "The Three Billy Goats Gruff." Young investigators will learn how to construct a model and design a solution. They will also keep records of their...
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Working with Watermills
In collaborative groups, emerging engineers or environmental scientists plan and construct a water wheel or watermill that rotates for a total of three minutes. Everything you need to carry out this lesson is included: objectives,...
Rochester Institute of Technology
Molecules and Fuel Cell Technology
A fuel cell is where the jailer keeps gas guzzlers. Scholars review chemical reactions, chemical bonds, and chemical structure in order to apply these concepts. Participants construct fuel cell kits, using electrolysis to run the car and...
Curated OER
Construct with Solids
Students discover which properties of solids lend themselves to building a tower through hands on trial and error and observation of others as they are building. They write down the steps it took them to build the tower and label an...
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
Glass Transition in a Rubber Ball
Learners illustrate the changes in the properties of a material at its glass transition point. They gather data which they use to construct graphs regarding elastic modules versus absorption modulus, tangent delta, and the effect of...
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Get Connected with Ohm's Law
Ideal for your electricity unit, especially with middle schoolers, this lesson plan gets engineers using multimeters in electrical circuits to explore the relationships among voltage, current, and resistance. Older learners may even plot...
Curated OER
Listening Devices
Students design and construct a listening device that will allow them to listen to the sound generated by specific object inside a box.
Curated OER
Wired with Alexander Calder
Kids consider how the body functions and moves, how each structure has a specific movement and purpose. They apply that idea as they construct a sculptural piece that moves. For inspiration they look to the work of Alexander Calder,...
DiscoverE
Build a Bobsled Racer
Host a design challenge of Olympic proportion! Junior engineers build their own bobsleds using simple materials. The activity focuses on kinetic and potential energy and how the center of mass affects motion on a downhill track....
Curated OER
A Child's Journey Through Medicine
Fifth graders identify the symptoms of asthma. In this biology instructional activity, 5th graders draw and label models of heart and lungs. They conduct a survey on asthma and construct graphs based on result.
Curated OER
Physics "24"
Students construct a model house or school. For this physics lesson, students research about who wind up clocks work and write an essay about it. They determine the center of gravity of different objects.
Teach Engineering
Active and Passive Transport: Red Rover Send Particles Over
I can move about freely, but you cannot. The class models the movement through cell membranes by way of passive and active transport. Members of the class play the roles of various proteins, atoms, compounds, and cell actions and mimic...
Curated OER
Tower Power
Students explore basic building and engineering concepts by constructing a structure that supports weight. They demonstrate an understanding of basic business concepts by estimating the cost and value of a building.
Curated OER
Bridge Construction
Students build a model of a bridge and test the amount of weight it support. They identify different types of bridges: suspension, arch, girder, truss, cantilever, cable-stayed and moveable.
Science Friday
Wind Power
Blow away the competition with a lesson about wind power and turbines. Groups build windmills to test how the size of blades affect the amount of work done. The scholars build a variety of blades and collect data on how each type...
NASA
Pop! Rockets
Off they go — launching rockets is fun. The lesson plan contains templates to build paper rockets that can be launched from a PVC pipe launcher. Individuals or groups build the rockets and determine the shapes for their fins. Included...
PBS
Paper Table
What is black and white and re(a)d all over? Class members build a table out of rolled newspapers. Pupils follow the design process to design, build, and test their paper tables in the second challenge in a series of five.
Curated OER
Science to Build On
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.
Curated OER
Build Working Models With household Items
Young scholars 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...
Curated OER
Forces, Controls And Aircraft Systems
Students are introduced to the physics of flight through video and PowerPoint presentations. They construct and fly model gliders and compete for height, distance, time, etc.
TryEngineering
Rescue Rover
Learners explore how rescue devices are made and used. In this rescue activity students design and build their own rescue device then test it.