Looking for an engineering project that will tower above the rest? Try a design experiment that has built-in fun! Groups examine a variety of skyscraper designs, then compete to create their own slender towers. The teacher's guide is...

Can your pupils build a roof that stands the test of time? Use an insightful engineering design project to highlight both materials science and architecture. Scholars either team up or work as individuals to design, create, and test a...

Host a design challenge of Olympic proportion! Junior engineers build their own bobsleds using simple materials. The activity focuses on kinetic and potential energy and how the center of mass affects motion on a downhill track....

Teams work as material engineers to create ferrofluids, whose shape is influenced by magnetic fields. The activity, which is the fourth in the six-part series, has the teams create magnetic ink and use it to write, testing it with a...

To an engineer, the glass is never half full; it's just double the necessary size. The fifth installment of a nine-part technology and engineering series teaches pupils about the idea of ergonomic design. Measurements of popliteal height...

I can move about freely, but you cannot. The class models the movement through cell membranes by way of passive and active transport. Members of the class play the roles of various proteins, atoms, compounds, and cell actions and mimic...

Go with the flow and use a helpful resource. A set of two activities has learners investigate flow rates. They first determine the flow rate of a faucet by measuring how long it takes to fill a bucket. Using the results, they make a...

Ramp up the engineering design process in your classroom with an activity that challenges teams to design, build, and test a small-scale portable wheelchair ramp. The class develops design requirements, and teams test their designs...

Have your class use the engineering design process to program a vacuum robot. Using computer engineering concepts, teams program an automatic floor cleaner to traverse designated patterns. 

For this mind-bending activity, young engineers explore this question of whether or not light actually bends. Using holographic diffraction gratings, groups design and build a spectrograph. The groups then move on research a problem...

Model an oil spill cleanup. An engaging engineering lesson has groups using aerogels to simulate an oil spill cleanup (vegetable oil in water). Along the way, they learn about nanotechnology and hydrophilia/hydrophobia.

Give your learners a leg up in their study of engineering. Groups design and create a prothestic for a leg. They test out their designs for strength, stability, durability, and comfort.

How do rockets fly? Teams design, build, and launch a rocket made from a two-liter bottle to explore forces on a rocket such as Newton's Laws of Motion.  During the design phase, young engineers draw a diagram of their rocket and...

This Discovery Education activity provides the information needed to understand the basics of flight. Before taking off, young pilots learn the eight stages of the engineering design process. Small groups then design and build...

Make Newton proud. Scholars apply their understanding of forces and energy to an engineering design challenge. They learn about simple machines, create a presentation on Newton's laws, and develop a balloon-powered car.

Does your shirt hate water? In the activity, future engineers observe the hydrophobic effect in fabrics. They brainstorm and test some ideas for waterproofing fabrics.

Engineering challenges are not just man-made ... nature has its own set of them. A hands-on STEM activity has groups designing a seed dispersal system. Each group can only use one sheet of paper — a tough task!

Use STEM activities within the class to provide connections to concepts. The resource includes activities that range from working with buoyancy to building rockets and launching them. Other activities involve the engineering design...

Watch out below! Future engineers come up with methods to ensure that a ball in a cup stays in the cup even after dropped from a given height. It might be prudent to include some kind of shock absorber in the cup. Parachutes are a good...

Pasta is great for cooking—and for making Ferris wheels. Aspiring engineers use an assortment of pasta types to create a functioning Ferris wheel. They keep track of the design process to refine their designs, if necessary. Let's hope no...

Clamp onto the resource and don't let go. Future mechanical engineers produce a pipe clamp from a sheet of metal. This idea is to use the pipe clamp to affix a pull-up bar in a doorway.

How do dams support bodies of water? Scholars engage in a hands-on STEM activity where they design, build, and test dams to learn about bodies of water and how humans use natural resources. They learn how criteria and constraints affect...

Investigate invisible forces. Young engineers design a setup that changes the direction of a steel ball using a magnetic force. The purpose of the setup is to model the gravitational pull of spacecraft by planetary bodies.

Future engineers create robotic arms like those on rovers built by NASA in the second lesson of the series. They test their devices by attempting to pick up and move cups to a specified location.