Teach Engineering
Protecting Our City with Levees
Teams use the design process to design, build, and test a model levee to protect the town from a wall of water. A handout provides a price list for the materials learners can use to build their levee within a budget.
DiscoverE
Marble Run
It's time to slow your roll! Can your class create a track that allows a marble to roll as slowly as possible? Teams of science scholars collaborate to design, build, and test their tubes while learning about gravity and friction.
Kenan Fellows
Electricity: Sources, Usage, Challenges, and the Future
What does the future of energy look like? Junior engineers collaborate to discover a solution to the global energy crisis during a very hands-on lesson plan. The unit focuses on learning through collaboration to develop a deep...
Missouri University of science & Technology
General Overview History of the Panama Canal
Called the Eight Wonder of the World by some and the Big Ditch by others, the Panama Canal is indeed an engineering marvel. The long, complicated, and sometimes controversial history of the canal is captured in a presentation loaded with...
Curated OER
Civil Engineering: Designing Bridges
Students examine the bridges of the United States. They discuss the concept of balance. They draw their own design of a suspension bridge.
Curated OER
Bridge Design and Bridge Building
Seventh graders conduct an investigation into the design of bridges and their construction. Students design bridges and draw detailed plans. For assessment they construct a model of a bridge that is made entirely of toothpicks. Students...
Curated OER
A Design for a Fireplace: Extreme Home Makeover
Students examine a relief structure focusing on style, relief, and design. Students discuss and analyze the sculpture Sketch for a Fireplace Overmantel by Francesco Antonio Franzoni. Students brainstorm about the current styles...
National First Ladies' Library
Fashion Trends in the 1960s: Hippies, Flower Children, and Design
Middle schoolers use the Internet to research and examine clothing styles of 1960s, draw pictures of various clothing and accessories popular in that decade, trace images on top of foil tray or pan to design a stamp, and make...
Curated OER
Future Engineers: Tools for Success
Seventh graders create and engineer model transportation vehicles using crafting materials. They use technical drawing to develop their ideas and choose the appropriate tools and processes during the manufacturing of their designs. They...
Curated OER
Fish Tanks: Volume and Surface Area
Given a very realistic challenge, your young geometers design residential fish tanks in rectangular and triangular prism shapes. They compute the volume of water each will hold. They also determine the size of plastic covers for each...
Curated OER
Toothpick Sculpture
You'll be surprized at how much engineering, design, and creativity can go into a toothpick and a marshmallow. Learners make toothpick sculptures where they construct three-dimentional models by sticking marshmallows and toothpicks...
Curated OER
Eight Ways to Learn All About Me
Activities designed to encourage young ones to learn who they are and how to express themselves.
Teach Engineering
Engineering Brainstorming
Here is a lesson that offers a great hybrid of forming new skills and using current knowledge to come up with a plan. The class brainstorms information they would need to know or already know about hybrid vehicles. They then group...
National Wildlife Federation
Fossil Fuel Extraction Activity
Extracting oil is more difficult than many think! Learners work together and get hands-on as they represent oil companies drilling for oil by simulating oil extraction using beans. They identify the challenges faced in using...
NASA
Egg Drop Lander
You have to crack a few eggs to make a good engineer! Working in small groups, young scholars design, build, and test devices that protect an egg from breaking when dropped from a ladder.
Curated OER
Goldberg's Gears
Students engage in a lesson plan that is concerned with the design principles employed by the engineer Reuben Goldberg. They read a biographical sketch of the artist and then create the context for studying how machines work. They create...
Curated OER
Make an Alarm!
Students read the story, Dear Mr. Henshaw. They build an alarm system for something in the classroom, as the main character Leigh does to protect his lunchbox from thieves. Students explore alarms and use their creativity to create an...
Berkeley Engineering and Mentors
Marshmallow Catapaults
After a brief lecture on levers, torque, projectiles, and the five-step engineering design cycle, young physical science learners or engineers build catapults out of craft sticks. This is an open-ended exploration of what works and what...
Curated OER
Aerospace Engineering
Twelfth graders examine the physics of rocket flight. They build and launch model rockets to measure their performances.
Curated OER
Medical Instrumentation
Young scholars analyze how medical devices that help the human body function. They work in pairs or groups to draw multiple views of the medical device and describe how engineering is used by biomedial engineers.
Curated OER
Design Project: DC Voltage Regulator
In this electrical worksheet, students draw a schematic design and build a circuit board to grasp the understanding of DC circuits before answering a series of 5 open-ended questions. There are no schematics available for the design or...
Curated OER
Dream Building: Frank Lloyd Wright 1867 – 1959
As a part of an architecture unit, 10th graders research and draw a building's exterior. They view images of buildings Frank Lloyd Wright has designed, attend lecture, conduct research on architectural design, and then draw an exterior...
Kenan Fellows
The Little Stuff Can Make a Big Difference
Great things come in small packages! What better way to illustrate this point than a week-long look at nanotechnology? Earth science scholars explore water quality issues through lab activities, then research new innovations in nanotech...
Curated OER
Fill a Jar
Sometimes short instructional activity outlines are enough to give you a great idea. Young writers draw any object inside an image of a jar, that doesn't belong in a jar. They can draw a tree, truck, or dinosaur. Tip: Have kids write a...