Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Thinking Green!

For Teachers 7th - 9th
Students show their creativity and think like engineers as they design products or services that can be used to improve environmental problems in the community. While being aware of the steps of the engineering design process, students...
Lesson Plan
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: The Artificial Bicep

For Teachers 4th - 7th
Students learn more about how muscles work and how biomedical engineers can help keep the muscular system healthy. Following the engineering design process, they create their own biomedical device to aid in the recovery of a strained...
Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Let the Blood Flow

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Students work as biomedical engineers to find liquid solutions that can clear away polyvinyl acetate polymer "blood clots" in model arteries (made of clear, flexible tubing). Teams create samples of the "blood clot" polymer with...
Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Trash to Treasure!

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Student teams use the engineering design process to create a useful product of their choice out of recyclable items and "trash." The class is given a "landfill" of reusable items, such as aluminum cans, cardboard, paper, juice boxes,...
Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Design a Bicycle Helmet

For Teachers 9th - 10th
The goal of the activities is for students to understand the basics of engineering associated with safety products. Using a bicycle helmet helps to protect the brain and neck during a crash. In order to do this effectively, helmets must...
Lesson Plan
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Defining an Engineering Design Problem With Paper Airplanes

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
For this fun lesson, you will be the "customer" ordering a paper airplane, and your student teams will be engineering companies that will manufacture planes. Before they start making planes, they need to define the criteria and...
Lesson Plan
Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education, Stevens Institute of Technology

Ciese: Scratch My Back: Children's Engineering Activity

For Teachers K - 1st
This lesson is based on the book Big Smelly Bear by Britta Teckentrup. In the book, a big, smelly bear has an itch in the middle of his back and can't scratch it. Nothing the bear tries works. Using the Engineering Design Process,...
Lesson Plan
TryEngineering

Try Engineering: Engineering Ups and Downs

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Engineering design lesson examines the principles behind working elevators. Teams of students explore how elevators work, then design, build, and evaluate their own elevator to service a toy car garage.
Handout
Thinkport Education

Thinkport: Designing a Healthier, Happier Meal: The Engineering Design Process

For Students 9th - 10th
See how STEM professionals typically work on teams to complete projects.
Lesson Plan
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: The Strongest Pump of All

For Teachers 9th - 10th
In this lesson the students will learn how the heart functions. Students will be introduced to the concept of action potential generation. The lesson will explain how action potential generation causes the electrical current that causes...
Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Survive That Tsunami!

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Students use a table-top-sized tsunami generator to observe the formation and devastation of a tsunami. They see how a tsunami moves across the ocean and what happens when it reaches the continental shelf. Students make villages of model...
Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Maze Challenge

For Teachers 3rd - 8th
As the first engineering design challenge of the unit, students are introduced to the logic for solving a maze. student groups apply that logic to program LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robots to navigate through a maze, first with no sensors, and...
Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Red Cabbage Chemistry

For Teachers 7th - 9th
Students take advantage of the natural ability of red cabbage juice to perform as a pH indicator to test the pH of seven common household liquids. Then they evaluate the accuracy of the red cabbage indicator, by testing the pH of the...
Lesson Plan
TryEngineering

Try Engineering: Tinkering With Tops

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Students learn about the engineering design process as they design, build, and test spinning tops using everyday materials. The objective of the design is to have the top spin at least 10 seconds within a thirty centimeter diameter.
Lesson Plan
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: A Mini World

For Teachers 3rd - 8th
As students learn about the creation of biodomes, they are introduced to the steps of the engineering design process, including guidelines for brainstorming. Students learn how engineers are involved in the design and construction of...
Lesson Plan
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Olympic Engineering

For Teachers 3rd - 8th
The lesson plan begins by introducing Olympics as the unit theme. The purpose of this lesson plan is to introduce students to the techniques of engineering problem solving. Specific techniques covered in the lesson plan include...
Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Edible Rovers

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Students act as Mars exploratory rover engineers. They evaluate rover equipment options and determine what parts fit in a provided NASA budget. With a given parts list, teams use these constraints to design for their rover. The students...
Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Car Collision Testing & Tradeoffs: Don't Crack Humpty

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Student groups are provided with a generic car base on which to design a device/enclosure to protect an egg as it rolls down a ramp at increasing slopes. During this activity, student teams design, build and test their prototype...
Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Energy Systems and Solutions

For Teachers 7th - 8th
The Energy Systems and Solutions unit brings students through the exploration of science and engineering concepts as they relate to energy issues in everyday life. Issues surrounding energy production and energy consumption provide a...
Lesson Plan
Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education, Stevens Institute of Technology

Ciese: Reverse Engineering of a Common Product

For Teachers 9th - 10th
A telecollaborative project where students communicate engineering concepts across the globe. Student tasks are to deconstruct a common device, then design reassembly instructions for others worldwide to follow to attempt to reconstruct...
Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Shapes of Strength

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Students are introduced to brainstorming and the design process in problem solving as it relates to engineering. They perform an activity to develop and understand problem solving with an emphasis on learning from history. Using only...
Unit Plan
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Hybrid Vehicle Design Challenge

For Teachers 9th - 10th
This module is written for a first-year algebra-based physics class, though it could easily be modified for conceptual physics. It is intended to provide hands-on activities to teach the overarching concept of energy, as it relates to...
Unit Plan
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Implementing Biomimicry and Sustainable Design

For Teachers 9th - 10th
This unit provides students with an opportunity to study ecological relationships with an emphasis on the Sonoran Desert. Students appreciate the complexity and balance that supports the exchange of energy and matter within food webs....
Handout
PBS

Pbs Kids: Design Squad Nation: Games: Fidgit

For Students 9th - 10th
This resource allows students to practice engineering skills while trying to win a fun interactive game.