Redecorate a classroom on a budget. Middle schoolers rebuild a classroom after a disaster. They conduct Internet research to determine construction supplies needed and the most cost effective way to reach the predetermined results. They...

Middle schoolers investigate the use of math in everyday life. They investigate several occupations and pay scales. They complete spreadsheets that show how monthly bills can be organized using technology. They use word processing...

Our final proposal for the cost of the bridge requested is ... In the last segment in a series of 10, pairs work together to develop a proposal for a city bridge design. The class completes a cost comparison between concrete and steel to...

Design and build a rover ... then eat it? This activity has groups of two design and build Mars rovers. The teams determine what instruments they want to include with their rover and plan a budget. They calculate the cost of the body of...

Turn your pupils into engineers who are able to use scientific principals to design a ship. This long-term project expects pupils to understand concepts of density, buoyancy, displacement, and metacenter, and apply them to constructing a...

The classic egg-drop experiment gets a new bounce with an activity that asks pairs to design a lander similar to one used to land a rover on Mars within a fixed budget. The activity provides a great introduction to the idea of...

Teams use the design process to design, build, and test a model levee to protect the town from a wall of water. A handout provides a price list for the materials learners can use to build their levee within a budget.

Class members learn how to estimate the total costs involved to design and build a bridge by including design, material, equipment, and labor costs. The activity includes a discussion about the trade-off between cost and aesthetics.

Sixth graders analyze an introductory lesson for Microsoft Excel. They go step by step through the creation of a basic spreadsheet and the use of simple formulas in a problem solving format.

Students investigate how engineers use different types of bridges for different places. In small groups they design and construct bridges for three different scenarios, and answer a series of investigating questions applied to the...

Students build three types of towers, engineering them to hold an egg one foot high for 15 seconds. They discover that engineering designs are subject to constraints such as time, money and size specifications. In this activity students...