Activity
Technovation

Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Build a Self Driving Car Game

For Students Pre-K - 1st
Do you think you could build a game board that acts as a system of circuits to alert and navigate around obstacles? This site contains this challenge as well as a place for students to document their engineering design process, tips, and...
Activity
Technovation

Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Build a Light Dispersal System

For Students Pre-K - 1st
Use this website challenges to create a way to spread light inside a house to illuminate a picture. The website also includes tips, a lesson plan, a place for students to document their engineering design process.
Activity
Technovation

Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Make Drawings of Three Dimensional Objects

For Students Pre-K - 1st
Using the Glass Box Theory, students will make scaled technical drawings of 3D objects. This site includes the challenge, tips, a lesson plan, and a place for students to document their engineering design process.
Activity
Technovation

Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Make a Flat Ball

For Students Pre-K - 1st
Using simple geometric shapes cut out of paper and taped together to create a ball that is as round as possible with this challenge. This page also includes a lesson plan, tips, and a place for students to document their engineering...
Activity
Technovation

Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Build a Talking Truck

For Students Pre-K - 1st
On this site, you will find a challenge, a lesson plan, tips, and a place for you to document your engineering design process. Here you are challenged to build a truck that "talks" to alert when there is a problem.
Activity
Technovation

Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Build a Mighty Machine

For Students Pre-K - 1st
Using just popsicle sticks, paper clips, straws, pencil, binder clips, and rubber bands, students are challenged to build a structure that jumps into the air. This mighty machine will jump up, sideways, or flips over. This website...
Activity
Technovation

Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Build a Planting Machine

For Students Pre-K - 1st
A challenge that asks students to build a machine that distributes seeds precisely. This site includes a lesson plan, tips, and a place to document their engineering design process.
Activity
Technovation

Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Build a Self Powered Rocket

For Students Pre-K - 1st
A challenge where students will launch a small object using a chemical reaction. The site contains tips, a lesson plan, and a place for students to document their engineering design process.
Activity
Technovation

Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Build a Water Filter

For Students Pre-K - 1st
A challenge for students to build a water filter that can clean dirty water. Site includes challenge, a lesson plan, tips, and a place for students to document their engineering design process.
Activity
Technovation

Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Invent a Biobot

For Students Pre-K - 1st
Make a robot that moves like a living creature using a microcontroller, motors, and mechanisms with this challenge. Also, on this challenge find a lesson plan, tips, and a place for students to document their engineering design process.
Activity
Technovation

Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Construct a Crane

For Students Pre-K - 1st
Can you build a crane that uses simple machines and mechanical advantage to move heavy objects? This website contains a challenge, tips, a lesson plan, and a place for students to document their engineering design process.
Activity
Technovation

Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Balance a Dinosaur

For Students Pre-K - 1st
Using common household items, students are challenged to build a dinosaur at least 6" tall that can balance on two legs using counterbalances. This website contains the challenge, tips, a lesson plan, and a place for students to document...
Activity
Technovation

Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Build a Long Spanning Wing

For Students Pre-K - 1st
Students are challenged to build a wing that can support its own weight over a span of at least two feet on this website. The website also contains a place for students to document their engineering design process, tips, and a lesson plan.
Unit Plan
Practical Action

Practical Action: Squashed Tomato Challenge

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Challenge students to take on a real-life problem affecting people in Nepal. Many farmers living on the mountainside there grow fruit and vegetables, including tomatoes. To earn a living, they need to sell these at the local market. The...
Unit Plan
Practical Action

Practical Action: Plastics Challenge

For Teachers 3rd - 9th
This is a challenge for students to develop solutions to the problems caused by plastic waste globally. They will learn about how plastic waste impacts people around the world, the different types of plastic, how they are each used, how...
Unit Plan
Practical Action

Practical Action: Beat the Flood

For Teachers 3rd - 8th
Flooding due to climate change can have a devastating effect on people's lives. Set on the fictitious island of Watu, pupils explore how STEM skills can be used to help communities be better prepared for flooding. Students will work as a...
Lesson Plan
Discovery Education

Discovery Education: Science of Everyday Life: The Everyday Science of Sports [Pdf]

For Teachers 6th - 9th
A lesson plan where students learn about the physics behind golf balls. Students evaluate different designs of golf balls to understand how their design impacts their function. After their evaluation, students will try to improve the...
Lesson Plan
The Tech Interactive

The Tech Museum of Innovation: Save the Hiker [Pdf]

For Teachers 4th - 8th
Can you build a device that will deliver life-saving treatment to someone in a hazardous situation? During this lesson, students will learn how energy is converted and transferred between objects. Working in groups and through the...
Interactive
Concord Consortium

Concord Consortium: Stem Resources: Building a Zip Line

For Students 3rd - 5th
For this interactive, students plan, create, and test a zip line that will transport a hard-boiled egg without breaking it. They will make improvements on their design based on data about its performance. A motion sensor is required in...
Lesson Plan
The Tech Interactive

The Tech Interactive: Lesson Plan: Catch It if You Can! [Pdf]

For Teachers 4th - 7th Standards
Learners will learn about the ongoing issues associated with drought in California and how water conservation can be part of a solution. Students will design a rooftop water catchment system for drought-conscious Ms. Drizzle to install...
Lesson Plan
The Tech Interactive

The Tech Interactive: Lesson Plan: Save the Fruit! [Pdf]

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
During this math-focused unit, young scholars will create a device that is used to harvest fruit from a tree. They will then look at failure points in order to iterate their design. Finally, students will describe their device as a...
Lesson Plan
National Science Teachers Association

National Science Teachers Association: Egg Drop and Impulse

For Teachers 9th - 10th
This page offers a detailed description of and a link to a set of lessons that will assist teachers in targeting NGSS standard HS-PS2-3. Students investigate momentum and impulse and are challenged to solve an engineering problem that is...
Lesson Plan
The Tech Interactive

The Tech Museum of Innovation: Bridging the Gap [Pdf]

For Teachers 4th - 8th
Can your team build the appropriate bridge to fit the needs of various terrains? In this lesson, students will build an assigned bridge in order to increase knowledge of various types of bridges. Students will then engage in a design...
Interactive
Discovery Education

Discovery Education: Science of Everyday Life: 3 M Wind Energy Virtual Lab

For Students 9th - 10th
Do you think you can design a wind turbine that supplies energy to 400 homes at the highest efficiency and lowest cost? Try your hand at turbine design in this interactive activity that allows you design, build, and test a device to...