Design Teacher Resources

Engineering design-based activities make learning science fun. Young engineers design dams, lifeguard chairs, musical instruments, candy bags, and much more. They also use measurement skills to solve the mystery of the missing pin. Each...

Challenge young engineers to design a sustainable guest village in Arizona’s Saguaro National Park. A collection of four lessons and five activities provide designers with all the information they need to complete the challenge of living...

Inquiry in Action: Fifth Grade Chapter 5 - Engineering Design is comprised of a single project-based assessment. The assessment helps highlight the importance of prior knowledge as individuals design a floatation device for a cell phone....

Pairs research building design in earthquake-prone areas and use computer simulations to see the effects of earthquakes on buildings. They sketch and explain a building design that would withstand a strong earthquake.

Looking for a complete unit on set design? Check out the lessons in a collection that takes theatre arts students through the entire process, from the initial reading and analysis of a script to the presentation of a production model.

NASA and the International Technology and Engineering Educators Association, or ITEEA, present young scientists with a challenge: design and build lunar plant growth chambers so that astronauts can grow edible plants on the moon. Class...

Everything you need to plan an event for young engineers can be found here, including activities, an event checklist, tips for working with youth and volunteers, signage, certificates, and an evaluation form. Kids make a rubber...

Oh, if only Sir Isaac and Bernoulli could see us now. Even Orville and Wilbur would be amazed by what engineers have designed using their ideas. Next generation engineers put these principles to use as they use what they learn about...

A collection of five lessons and activities introduce young engineers to simple and compound machines. Groups use the engineering design process to design a Rube Goldberg machine to move a circus elephant into a rail car, a pulley system...

Designed for high schoolers, the 11 lessons and activities in the “TeachEngineering: Next-Generation Surgical Tools in the Body” unit module prepare STEM teams to design prototypes of laparoscopic surgical robots. After an introduction...

Oh, no! An asteroid is on a collision course with Earth!. The challenge, should your students choose to accept it, is to design underground survival caverns to shelter people for one year. Over the course of eight lessons, engineering...

Introduce young engineers to the software development design process used in app building. After watching a video tutorial, groups are challenged to build an accelerometer app for an Android device and design an app utilizing the GPS...

Pupils start a Solar Transportation unit by considering why it is difficult to phase out fossil fuels. Using provided data on the energy densities and efficiencies of different fuels, they calculate the number of miles a vehicle will...

The five lessons in NASA’s On the Moon Educator Guide challenge young engineers to design and build an air-powered rocket, a shock-absorbing system to protect two marshmallow astronauts, and a rubber band-powered rover. In addition, they...

The Inquiry in Action: Fifth Grade Curriculum set contains five chapters, comprised of 16 lessons, activity sheets, videos, and other resources to help explain science concepts to young learners. In Chapter 1 - Matter is Made of Tiny...

Young engineers design laparoscopic surgical tools in an 11-lesson unit aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards. The first lesson introduces the class to the abdominopelvic cavity. Teams learn what it is like to perform...

Martians beware! Earthlings are on the way! A 13-resource collection prepares future astronauts for space travel by studying interesting facts about the Red Planet, the history of Martian exploration, and the development of robotics....

In this collection, Pascal’s law, Archimedes’ Principle, and Bernoulli’s Principle aid young engineers in understanding the physics of fluid mechanics. Armed with the knowledge of how forces are applied to fluids, scholars design...

Challenge young flight engineers to design a flying device for Ant-Man, balloon crafts with neutral buoyancy, paper airplanes from different paper types, hoop gliders, and a launcher for ping pong balls. Although designed for the 2016...

Introduce middle schoolers to the basic principles of chemistry with a curriculum set packed with activities and experiments that let learners explore the attractions and motion of atoms and molecules, the state changes of water,...

Imagine using a hot glue gun or a glue stick to demonstrate tension, compression, and torsion! A six-part series of lessons and hands-on activities teach young engineers about the fundamental facets of engineering design: forces, loads,...

The J. Paul Getty Museum presents a series of sequential lessons designed for primary school children that focuses on the ways artists depict or express feelings of caring and working together in works of art. To begin, young scholars...

Seven activities make up the TeachEngineering: Earthquakes Living Lab Collection. Activities designed for grades K-8 include “Geology and the 1906 San Francisco Quake,” “Designing for Disaster,” and “The Theory of Plate Tectonics.”...

The Atlantic and Pacific Oceans are awash in plastic. The four lessons in the “Adrift in a Sea of Plastic” module challenge young environmentalists to design a solution to eliminating these plastic trash islands. After researching causes...