PBS
Pbs Learning Media: Engineer a Jetliner
In this interactive lesson, students will experience the engineering design process as an aerospace engineer assigned to design and test an airplane.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Stack It Up!
Students analyze and begin to design a pyramid. Working in engineering teams, they perform calculations to determine the area of the pyramid base, stone block volumes, and the number of blocks required for their pyramid base. They make a...
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...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Curiosity Killed the App
Students gain experience with the software/system design process, closely related to the engineering design process, to solve a problem. First, they learn about the Mars Curiosity rover and its mission, including the difficulties that...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Naturally Organized
Students work in teams to design a tabletop supply organizer inspired by the natural home of an insect species. Their prototype stores the group's classroom supplies (scissors, crayon boxes, pencils, and glue sticks). In addition to...
Other
Cad Crowd: How Do Engineers Evaluate Different Design Ideas?
Explains all the things that must be taken into consideration when engineers evaluate the soundness and viability of a particular design.
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
Detroit Institute of Arts: Think Like an Engineer
In this STEAM lesson plan, students are immersed in a world of transportation design as they use the design thinking process to create their own vehicle prototype out of everyday materials.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Testing With J Unit
JUnit is a testing method that is included with NetBeans (Java) installs or can be downloaded from the web and included in the Java build. In this activity, students design tests for a provided Java class before the class methods are...
University of Hawai'i
University of Hawai'i: Exploring Our Fluid Earth: Activity: Design a Ship
In this activity, students apply their knowledge of buoyancy and ship stability to design a model ship. They test, evaluate, and refine the design of the model to optimize performance. Background information and other activities are...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Rockets
This unit teaches students how and why engineers design satellites to benefit life on Earth as well as allows students an opportunity to explore motion, rockets and rocket motion. Students discover that the motion of all objects...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Testing the Edges
Students gain experience using the software/systems (engineering) design process, specifically focusing on the testing phase. This problem-based learning activity uses the design process to solve open-ended challenges. In addition to...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Oil on the Ocean
Students learn about oil spills and their environmental and economic effects. They experience the steps of the engineering design process as they brainstorm potential methods for oil spill clean-up, and then design, build, and re-design...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Engineering for the Earth
Young students are introduced to the complex systems of the Earth through numerous lessons on its natural resources, processes, weather, climate and landforms. Key earth science topics include rocks, soils and minerals, water and natural...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Simple Machines From Pyramids to Skyscrapers
Simple machines are devices with few or no moving parts that make work easier, and which people have used to provide mechanical advantage for thousands of years. Students learn about the wedge, wheel and axle, lever, inclined plane,...
Better Lesson
Better Lesson: A Place in the Shade an Engineering Challenge
Kindergarteners can participate in the engineering and design process in this challenge in which they try to keep an ice cube from melting. Included in this activity are samples of student's structures, a video of a kindergarten class...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Power Your House With Water
Students learn how engineers design devices that use water to generate electricity by building model water turbines and measuring the resulting current produced in a motor. Students work through the engineering design process to build...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Introduction to Evolutionary Computation
Students are introduced to the concepts of evolution by natural selection and digital evolution software. They learn about the field of evolutionary computation, which applies the principles of natural selection to solve engineering...
TryEngineering
Try Engineering: Engineering Air Traffic
Young scholars work in teams to explore how radar and computer technology is used to provide the necessary data to air traffic controllers. Students become "engineers" as they work to find ways to enhance the current air traffic control...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Power Your House With Wind
Students learn how engineers harness the energy of the wind to produce power by following the engineering design process as they prototype two types of wind turbines and test to see which works best. Students also learn how engineers...
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.
TryEngineering
Try Engineering: Engineered Music
Object of this lesson is to learn about the engineering design of musical instruments. Students work in teams to design and build their own "tunable" and unique instrument using everyday materials.
Better Lesson
Better Lesson: Those Darn Squirrels! Brainstorming Ideas
A silly read-aloud captures the attention of students who must jump right into action applying the engineering design process in an effort to stop the squirrels from eating the birdseed. To complete the brainstorming students will work...