Other
American Society for Engineering Education: Building for Hurricanes
In this engineering design challenge about building in hurricane-prone regions, students learn that a solid base helps stabilize a structure by constructing, testing, and redesigning a tower that can support a tennis ball at least 18...
Other
American Society for Engineering Education: E Gfi: Lesson: Made to Sail
Students use simple materials to design and make model sailboats that must stay upright and sail straight in a testing tank.
Other
American Society for Engineering Education: E Gfi: Build a Big Wheel
In this activity, teams of students learn about the history and engineering behind big wheels (Ferris wheels) by constructing a working model using pasta, glue, and teabags.
![The Tech Museum of Innovation: Escape the Lava [Pdf] Lesson Plan](https://d15y2dacu3jp90.cloudfront.net/images/attachment_defaults/resource/large/FPO-knovation.png "The Tech Museum of Innovation: Escape the Lava [Pdf] Lesson Plan")
The Tech Interactive
The Tech Museum of Innovation: Escape the Lava [Pdf]
In this engineering challenge, students will design devices to help "Justin Case" escape lava by using items in their backpacks to get Justin from one tree to another. Students will use the knowledge they gain from this engineering...
The Tech Interactive
The Tech Museum of Innovation: Save the Hiker [Pdf]
Can you build a device that will deliver life-saving treatment to someone in a hazardous situation? During this instructional activity, students will learn how energy is converted and transferred between objects. Working in groups and...
The Tech Interactive
The Tech Interactive: Lesson Plan: Catch It if You Can! [Pdf]
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...
The Tech Interactive
The Tech Interactive: Lesson Plan: Save the Fruit! [Pdf]
During this math-focused unit, students 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 system and...
The Tech Interactive
The Tech Museum of Innovation: Animal Rescue [Pdf]
Scientists often need to gather information in order to form a deeper understanding of the problem. Can your team gather scientific evidence to help inform the design of a device that will help move endangered animals from one protected...
TryEngineering
Try Engineering: Engineer a Cane
This lesson focuses on how engineers improve assistive devices such as a cane to meet the needs of the elderly. Students work in teams to re-engineer a cane for a "client." They are assigned a client profile, develop a design to suit the...
TryEngineering
Try Engineering: Biomimicry in Engineering
This lesson focuses on the concept of Biomimicry and students learn how engineers have incorporated structures and methods from the living world in products and solutions for all industries. Students then work in teams to develop a...
Other
The Design Museum: Lesson Plan: Redesign Your Kitchenware
Young scholars will learn about the unique kettle invented by designer Philippe Starck. He designed the Hot Bertaa kettle to be different from everything else available. There was no lid to pour the water in, no handle, and no way of...
Other
The Design Museum: Can You Redesign an Object to Make It Easier to Use?
Grant Douglas has cerebral palsy and needs assistance to eat. While he was sitting at home being fed cornflakes by his mum, the phone rang. She answered it and as she talked, Grant could see his cornflakes getting soggier and soggier....
Practical Action
Practical Action: Floating Garden Challenge
In this unit, students will learn about the difficulty that farmers in Bangladesh and the UK experience trying to grow crops on land that is regularly flooded. Then they will be challenged to make a model of a structure that can float to...
Practical Action
Practical Action: Beat the Flood
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...
Practical Action
Practical Action: Wind Power Challenge
In this unit, students explore how life for people in the rural mountainous regions of Peru is different as they live without access to electricity. They learn how small-scale wind turbines have changed people's lives, as with a supply...
Practical Action
Practical Action: Plastics Challenge
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...
Practical Action
Practical Action: Squashed Tomato Challenge
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...
REMC Association of Michigan
Remc Association of Michigan: 21 Things4 Students: 15. Design Thinking
Design Thinking is a process for designing something to solve a problem. It shares a lot of similarities to the Engineering Design Process you might learn in a STEM class and the Scientific Method you learn in science. However, it tends...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Solving Everyday Problems Using the Engineering Design Cycle
Students are introduced to two real-life problems that can be solved by using the engineering design process. For the first one, they watch a slide presentation that shows how students use the engineering design process to build an...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Trade Offs and Maximizing Efficiency in a Fast Food Restaurant
Students learn about how to improve efficiency by examining fast food restaurants. More specifically, they learn about the concepts of trade-offs, constraints, increasing efficiency and systems thinking. They consider how to improve the...
Other
Engineering for Change: Necessary Trade Offs When Co Designing New Technology
The co-design of new technology with communities has benefits and trade-offs. Engineers Without Borders Australia describe a co-design project in rural Cambodia that they participated in. The goal was to design assistive technologies...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Accept a Design Trade Off Challenge Science Projects
Build a device to accomplish a fun task. Accept a design trade-off challenge of using only a set amount of simple materials, as if you were stuck on a desert island, to make your device work.
Other
Ontario Council for Technology Education: Transportation Design and Construction [Pdf]
In this project, young scholars will develop knowledge and skills related to the construction of vehicle/craft systems. They will identify and describe the major systems and components of vehicles, aircraft, and/or watercraft such as...
Other
Ontario Council for Technology Education: Designing and Testing a Crane [Pdf]
By the end of this project, students will be familiar with the 6 different simple machines and will be able to identify how these machines are used in products and tools they use on a daily basis. They will investigate how mechanical...