Water, water, everywhere, but pollution is a major problem. Scholars design a filtration device or process that removes dirt and other particles from water. They use various household objects such as marbles, cotton balls, or coffee...

A little wind shouldn't hurt a building. Given three sheets of paper and six feet of tape, scholars create a structure that can withstand wind and hold up a weight. They conduct tests using a fan and decide on any improvements to make...

Take a swing at a fun activity. Pupils first watch a video that introduces the concept of elasticity in association with tennis rackets. They then design their own rackets and build them out of available materials.

Watch red cabbage juice turn green. Pupils first watch a video that takes them through the process of creating red cabbage juice. They then add various solids and liquids to the juice and use the color change to determine whether the...

This is what all of the excitement has been building up to! Young engineers create engineering drawings, use machines to manufacture their products, test, and evaluate their designs in the last step in the engineering design...

Take your class on an out-of-this-world adventure with this fun engineering design lesson. Working in small groups, young scientists design, build, and test crew exploration vehicles using some creativity, teamwork, and...

What's the best way to learn how watersheds work? Build one! Combining engineering, the water cycle, and ecology concerns, the activity is the perfect fit for an interdisciplinary unit. Teams construct a model watershed with simple...

Fascinating reading about nanotechnology, nanoscale properties, and liquid crystals precedes a fun activity for young engineers. They measure their hands in nanometers, research, and then investigate how heat effects a sheet containing...

Fly into an engineering lesson sure to get your scholars' interest off the ground. Young pupils create hoop gliders out of straws and paper hoops. Adjusting the size and number of the hoops lets them investigate the effect on flight...

Challenge your class to use their understanding of the engineering design process to design and build a small-scale, off-road prototype for an assistive technology device. Teams select materials to build their scale models, and, using...

How high did the ball go? Engineering teams build a working pneumatic system that launches a ball into the air. The teams vary the amount of pressure and determine the accompanying height of the ball. An extension of building a device to...

Let's see how complicated we can make this simple task. The last activity associated with a 10-part series has groups design and build a Rube Goldberg machine. Teams determine a simple task to accomplish and use the engineering design...

Pairs work as engineering teams to design and build model bridges from drinking straws and tape. In this third segment in a series of 10, teams compete in an attempt to build the strongest bridge. To help with the design, the groups...

Let nature guide your engineering designs. By taking apart a flower, pupils learn about reverse engineering. They use the results to brainstorm designs for new products or ideas. This is the seventh installment of a nine-part Life...

Clay itself sinks, but clay boats float. Why? Young engineers build clay boats to learn about buoyancy. They test the weight the boats can hold using washers and then tweak their designs to make improvements, following the engineering...

Some interesting reading on the history of barcodes opens this technology lesson plan. Readers find out how engineers contribute, and then they gather into groups to discuss possible improvements to our current UPC barcode system. Know...

Some things are hard to resist. Small collaborative groups build circuits and calculate the voltage using Ohm's Law. Budding engineers explore the connection between the voltage across different resistors and linear...

Whatever floats your boat. Young engineers learn about density by measuring the masses and volumes of boxes filled with different materials. Using their knowledge of densities, they hypothesize whether objects with given densities will...

Here is an activity that merges technology with life skills as individuals use Google Earth to explore the differences between coordinate systems and map projections. The self-guided worksheet is the fourth segment in a nine-part unit....

How efficient is a motor in a LEGO set? Future engineers conduct an activity where a LEGO motor-generator system raises an object to a specified height. They then show what they learned and use their measurements to calculate the energy...

What does your class know about GMOs? Are they savvy to selective breeding? Challenge young minds to engineer the greatest crop of all time using a hands-on genetics unit. Learners discover the good and bad details of selective breeding,...

What do physicists and musicians have in common? A lot more than you might think. After first viewing a slide show presentation and completing a series of skills practice worksheets on the physics of light, sound, and...

Cookies are definitely important for scientific learning. To study aerogels, future engineers use chocolate chip cookie dough to make models. Their task is to design a process that removes the chocolate chips from the cookie dough,...

Three, two, one, blast off to a better understanding of force and motion with this exciting science lesson! Beginning with a discussion about rockets and gravity, young scientists go on to complete a series of worksheets about net...