Time to test the prototype. Groups test their prototypes to the plastics problem under consideration. The results of the tests and peer feedback offer a means to refine the prototype.

Make sure your house is warm in the winter. Pupils analyze graphs of heating costs for two similar houses and make hypotheses for why the costs differ. They then build models of houses with appropriate insulation to reduce heating costs.

Groups suspend objects within layers of liquids to determine the densities of different liquids and compare them to the densities of objects calculated in Part 1. The groups then carefully test their calculations by layering the...

Biology stars extract DNA samples from beef thymus and then examine its properties. They use enzymes to digest the DNA samples, and then use electrophoresis to separate fragments. Finally, they discuss methods and principles of...

Young engineers are instructed to design and build their own solar water heaters. Then, they calculate the efficiency and cost and compare them to commercially available models. This is a full unit for pupils to apply their knowledge.

Transform your class into a butterfly museum! Research different types of butterflies, their habitat, and life cycle. Interactive components such as PowerPoint presentations, Claymation movies, and webpages add pizzaz to the museum...

Engage young scientists in a project where high fashion meets engineering! Using foam core and hot glue, partnered pupils design and create a functional, fashionable pair of shoes. Groups then put the footwear through its paces using a...

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...

Help overcome challenges in eating pizza. Scholars work in groups to design a device that assists a physically handicapped person eat pizza. They build a prototype of such a device to test their designs before building. To...

After reading about how wind turbines work to collect clean energy, groups brainstorm and design their own windmill. Within the provided financial and physical constraints, groups must build a working windmill using only the materials...

Make fast food restaurants even faster. Groups consider trade-offs when maximizing efficiency in fast food restaurants. Restructuring schedules and floor plans, as well reassigning job duties, all fall under this directive.  

What do Pascal's law, Archimedes' Principle, and Bernoulli's Principle have to do with fluid mechanics? The included PowerPoint presentation provides the basic definitions and equations associated with the three. A set of homework...

Keep everything under control. The lesson, the 16th segment in a 22-part unit, provides a more detailed look at the parts of a plane, specifically the control surfaces. Pupils learn about the construction of the wings and the tails and...

Introduce your class to the idea of magnetic fields around electrical wires with an activity that provides the information about the direction of a magnetic field around a wire carrying an electric current.

You can eat a solar cell? A unit on solar energy begins with a discussion about organic solar cells, followed by directions on how to build your own. After following the teacher's directions to build an anthocyanin...

Students make an eco-friendly vehicle to help make transportation better for the environment. In this transportation lesson plan, students learn how transportation inventions are bad for the environment. They then see how engineers have...

The construction of skyscrapers is no simple undertaking, involving the careful coordination and planning of many different people. The third lesson in this series explores this detailed process by first teaching children about the main...

Use food coloring in electrophoresis. The last segment in a four-part series mimics DNA fingerprinting by using chromatography. Teams conduct chromatography on food coloring to find colors that use similar pigmentation in their makeup.

Mix up your lessons with a resource on mixed-media structures. Scholars design a structure out of paper, balloons, and string that will lift a pencil to the greatest height; they construct the structure at a later time. 

Future chemists practice laboratory techniques by creating a monochloramine solution. The objectives are to use of dilution, 9concentration, and measurement skills and to prepare a solution that will be used in a water treatment...

Space, the Final Frontier. The nine NASA-created challenges in this unit are designed to teach class members the engineering design process. Each challenge comes with teacher and student pages that can be used individually or as a...

It's time to save endangered species through engineering. The third lesson in a nine-part Life Science unit has young environmentalists study species extinction. An engaging discussion leads to some ideas on how to use engineering design...

Get the class up and going with a lesson that discusses how airplane wings provide lift. Pupils use their knowledge of Bernoulli's Principle to develop an explanation of how it creates lift on airplane wings.