Ready, aim, fire! Launch to a new level of understanding as scholars build and test their own catapults. Learners explore lever design and how adjusting the fulcrum changes the outcome. 

Electronic engineering hopefuls get hands-on with hand geometry and the technology of biometrics. After taking the appropriate measurement on their hands, they configure their personal hand geometry codes and compare them to classmates....

Japanese is at your fingertips! Japanese language learners will get a kick out of the eight games and specially designed Japanese materials provided here.   

It's a neat idea, but the task of designing a system for filling jars with consistent specific amounts of a product may be a little out of reach, especially for younger pupils. Intended as an engineering design lesson, this may be better...

To begin the learning about dams, learners read (or are read to, depending on the age group) a passage about how dams work. Next, they work in groups to use the materials provided to build a small scale working dam. After the experience,...

Nature contains both symmetry and asymmetry. Have your young artists examine symmetry and asymmetry in their own surroundings. After viewing works of art, pupils find trees in their neighborhoods and determine if they...

Combine landscape with collage to create unique art pieces. Class members examine works of art before creating their own pieces with photos of a special place. Learners create a panoramic image and add in figures.

If you could build your own treehouse, what would it look like? Using a piece of contemporary art as inspiration, learners draw their own treehouses and add geometric and organic shapes. The lesson touches on Visual Thinking Strategies...

Trade 'em, flip 'em, save 'em. Yes, it's trading cards! Kids design their own artist trading cards, complete with images and stats.

Do polar opposites attract? After an introduction on the polarity of molecules, pupils are asked to design a self-assembling model using materials with different polarity. The challenge should motivate learners to develop a workable...

In a nose-cone to nose-cone competition, which rocket will prevail? Teams form rocket companies to design and build a rocket while competing against other teams in an economic challenge. The team that comes up with the best benefit/cost...

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...

Get to know the human body from the inside out. The first lesson plan in a series of 10 introduces the class to the abdominopelvic cavity. Biomedical engineers need to understand the region of the body as they develop and improve...

What happens to light as it passes through a hole? This is the main question centered around the designing of a solar eclipse dynamic art piece that uses a solar eclipse and paper to create a pinhole projection of the art.

Breathe some life into product design. Pupils learn about the stages of product creation, use, and disposal—sometimes called a cradle-to-grave assessment. They see how this cycle relates to the life cycle of organisms.

What does it take to get stuff to the Moon? Design teams create subsystems for a space transportation system to go to the Moon. The teams study Earth transportation components along with historical space transportation systems to...

Quit repeating yourself ... you can make this simpler! Rather than repeating the same set of code over and over, class members learn to build and call functions in a series of challenges in App Lab. In the end, they combine...

Teams take their cavern designs and build a model from clay or paper mache that can be buried in sand. Testing involves dropping a bowling ball on the buried cavern. Teams dig out their cavern, inspect it for damage, and consider...

Can my windmill pick up a weight? Given the same set of materials, groups design and build the most efficient windmill. On the first day, groups concentrate on getting a windmill to spin, while on the second day, they modify their...

Think like an engineer and an agricultural scientist over the course of 12 lessons in a STEM based unit. Young scientists take on the roles of animal physiologists, animal geneticists, agricultural engineers, animal nutritionists,...

Explore the scientific process through nature. Scholars become scientists as they develop a question, design an experiment, collect data, and analyze their results. A two-week lesson guides your classes through the process and provides...

Scholars become rocket scientists as they take off on a journey exploring Newton's laws of motion. After learning the laws of motion, pupils design their own investigations using straw rockets. They highlight their literacy skills in a...

Bounce off some ideas to reduce the amount of wasted space. Teams work together to determine the best size and shape of container to package a large order of ping pong balls. Groups are to design the container to reduce the amount of...

Revolutionize the solar cell industry with a new design. The 10th of 14 lessons in the Cost Effective Solar Cells unit has pupils start a project in which they design a unique solar cell. They receive an introduction to the project,...