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Handout
PBS

Pbs Kids: Design Squad Challenge: Four Corners (Pdf) [Pdf]

For Students 3rd - 8th
Hands-on challenge to build a machine out of cardboard that runs smoothly and dependably. Provides full list of materials with illustrations and ideas on how to build, test, and redesign it if necessary. Activity focuses on the...
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Activity
PBS

Pbs Kids: Design Squad Challenge: Paddle Power [Pdf]

For Students 3rd - 8th
Hands-on challenge to design and build a paddle boat that moves across water using a rubber band as its power source. Provides full list of materials with ideas on how to design, build, test, and redesign it if necessary. Activity...
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Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Flying T Shirts

For Teachers 9th - 10th
During this engineering design/build project, students investigate many different solutions to a problem. Their design challenge is to find a way to get school t-shirts up into the stands during home sporting events. They follow the...
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Unit Plan
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Using Stress and Strain to Detect Cancer

For Teachers 9th - 10th
In this project, students are challenged to answer the question "Is there a way to detect the presence of tumors that isn't as painful as mammography but more reliable and quantifiable than a breast-self exam or clinical breast-exams?"....
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Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Build a Toy Workshop

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Working as if they are engineers who work for (the hypothetical) Build-a-Toy Workshop company, students apply their imaginations and the engineering design process to design and build prototype toys with moving parts. They set up...
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Handout
PBS

Pbs Kids: Design Squad Challenge: Pop Fly [Pdf]

For Students 3rd - 8th
Hands-on challenge to design and build a way to launch a Ping-Pong ball high enough to catch it. Provides full list of materials with ideas on how to design, build, test, and redesign it if necessary. Activity focuses on the engineering...
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Lesson Plan
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Hidden in Plain Sight

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Steganography is the science and art of hiding messages in plain sight so only the sender and intended recipient know the existence of a message. Steganography can be characterized as security through obscurity. Through this lesson,...
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Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Tunnel Through!

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Students apply their knowledge about mountains and rocks to transportation engineering, with the task of developing a model mountain tunnel that simulates the principles behind real-life engineering design. Student teams design and...
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Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Waves Go Public!

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Students apply everything they have learned over the course of the associated lessons about waves, light properties, the electromagnetic spectrum, and the structure of the eye, by designing devices that can aid color blind people in...
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Lesson Plan
Other

American Society for Engineering Education: Building for Hurricanes

For Teachers 2nd - 8th
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...
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Lesson Plan
Other

The Design Museum: Lesson Plan: Redesign Your Kitchenware

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Students 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 plugging...
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Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Artificial Heart Design Challenge

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Students are presented with a hypothetical scenario in which they are biomedical engineers asked to design artificial hearts. Using the engineering design process as a guide, the challenge is established and students brainstorm to list...
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Lesson Plan
TryEngineering

Try Engineering: Can You Canoe?

For Teachers 3rd - 8th
Teams of students learn about the engineering design process as they design, build, and test a model canoe made with everyday materials. Lesson focuses on how materials engineering has impacted the manufacturing of canoes over time.
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Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Clearing a Path to the Heart

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Following the engineering design process and acting as biomedical engineers, student teams use everyday materials to design and develop devices and approaches to unclog blood vessels. They learn about the circulatory system, biomedical...
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Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Android App Development

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Students develop an app for an Android device that utilizes its built-in internal sensors, specifically the accelerometer. The goal of this activity is to teach programming design and skills using MIT's App Inventor software (free to...
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Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Super Slinger Engineering Challenge

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Students are challenged to design, build and test small-scale launchers while they learn and follow the steps of the engineering design process. For the challenge, the "slingers" must be able to aim and launch Ping-Pong balls 20 feet...
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Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Mint Mobiles

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Students design, build and test model race cars made from simple materials (lifesaver-shaped candies, plastic drinking straws, Popsicle sticks, index cards, tape) as a way to explore independent, dependent and control variables. They...
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Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Balloons

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Students follow the steps of the engineering design process as they design and construct balloons for aerial surveillance. After their first attempts to create balloons, they are given the associated Estimating Buoyancy lesson to learn...
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Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: My Moon Colony

For Teachers 7th - 9th
Students are introduced to the futuristic concept of the moon as a place people can inhabit. They brainstorm what people would need to live on the moon and then design a fantastic Moon colony and decide how to power it. Student use the...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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,...
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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...