Students investigate the properties of two and three dimensional objects. In this geometry lesson, students differentiate polygons based on similarity and congruence. They make observation and interpret the data.

Students draw conclusions about an mystery person based on documents and artifacts provided. In this drawing conclusions instructional activity, students become detectives by reading and analyzing evidence provided. This instructional...

Young scholars discuss potential and kinetic energy and design roller coasters to study this concept. In this energy lesson, students discuss the potential and kinetic energy of a roller coaster. Young scholars design roller coasters and...

The good thing about building this rover is you get to eat it afterwards. Pairs determine rover parts they want to include in their design based upon their cost and usefulness. The teams design their rovers, build them from edible...

Watch your marshmallows fly. The engaging STEM activity has groups create a catapult to launch marshmallows. After testing their prototypes, they consider improvements and redesign their catapults.

Discover how innovations can help your school and community. In the three-part STEM lesson, scholars learn the meaning of innovation and brainstorm innovations in their schools. They identify issues in their communities and think of...

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. 

Stability is key when building a bridge. Scholars explore the forces acting upon bridges through an analysis of Newton's Laws and Hooke's Law. The activity asks individuals to apply their learning by building a bridge of their own.

A wind turbine is essentially just a giant pinwheel, right? Individuals first create pinwheels from paper, pins, and pencils. In groups, they model a wind farm along a coast and then test out their designs using an electric fan.

It's electric! Young anatomists use Virtual Neurons software to build, control, and analyze complex nerve circuits within the body. Colorful and packed with content, class members enjoy interacting with the nervous system...

Students describe the complementary relationships between pollinators and the plants they pollinate, identify adaptations that flowers have developed to "encourage" pollination, and create and draw their own "designer" flowers.

Students study black history, examine portraits and portrait making and create their own portraits, and  investigate their natural environment. This humanities lesson provides a text that can be used to teach lessons in black...

A two-slide presentation shows learners how to design a car. The first slide has them list the color, number of wheels, and a drawing of the vehicle. The second slide has them list all of the materials they will need to build it.

Investigate the effect of one-axis rotations on geometric figures. Scholars learn to use snap cubes and the right-hand rule to draw figures after rotations about the x-, y-, or z-axes. They try their hands at examples created by the...

Future engineers test different alloys to determine the specific strength of each one. Based on the results, they make a recommendation to NASA on which alloy to use on engines for spacecraft.

What energy conversions occur in the operation of a device? Small groups investigate devices and the energy conversions that occur. The groups create energy flow diagrams with added conversion processes for each of the devices...

It's always nice to see what the solution looks like. Groups build a prototype of their solution to the plastics problem in the sixth installment of a 10-part unit. The prototypes can be either a visual prototype or a working prototype.

What makes human interaction different from interaction with computers? Learners consider the question as they build Turing tests to determine whether a computer thinks like a human. They begin by looking at current versions of Turing...

Newton's Laws get the rocket to work, but do they serve any other functions? A six-page resource classifies rockets by the type of propellant they use. It then describes applications of Newton's Laws of Motion, both in the...

What a waste! The last installment of a nine-part technology/engineering series teaches learners about medical waste disposal systems. Conducting a simulation allows individuals to understand how monetary considerations constrain waste...

Physics fanatics will shriek over this monster-themed construction application! They design an invention with the intention of competing one of 50 missions and test it out with real physics applications. 

See what it feels like to be a robot. Scholars use programming vocabulary to program a human robot and test out their codes by acting them out. The code should result in stacking six cups into a pyramid.

Learners explore the design process. They discuss why new products are made, examine backscratchers brought in from home and discuss why it is a useful device, and working with a partner draw and construct a backscratcher.

Eighth graders research highway designs and create a marble maze to illustrate a highway system. They test their designs and write reports defining the project and analyzing the results.