Building an Engineering Mindset at Home 

NEW!

  • Student Activity: Building Bridges 4-H STEM Lab Activity | 4-H (4-h.org) - In this activity, youth will apply STEM to community issues through the engineering design process and the basic mechanics behind building bridges while designing their own bridge. This is a spin on an activity frequently seen in afterschool programs but with a serious focus on the design process.  Kids re-visit the hands-on experience with new meaning. 

  • Student Activity: Educator Guide: Robotic Arm Challenge | NASA/JPL Edu - This activity is part of NASA’s Engineering in the Classroom tool for educators! In this challenge, students will use a model robotic arm to move items from one location to another as they engage in the engineering design process to design, build and operate the arm.

  • Student Activity: Race for the Planet: Spring ’21 Edition | Project Green Schools - Project Green Schools has selected a sampling of activities from their larger program to give your students a way to apply environmental education to community issues. Join the coastal cleanup challenge, the upcycle challenge, the scavenger hunt, or other activities as a group or individually. 

  • Student Activity: Toxic Popcorn Design Challenge - This lesson introduces youth to the engineering design process (EDP)—the process engineers use to solve design challenges. Youth work in teams to solve the challenge by designing both a product and process to safely remove “toxic” popcorn and save the city.

  • Student Activity: Engineering a Flotation Device - Youth design a device that uses simple chemical reactions to create a floatable device for a cell phone. Youth experimenting with "chemical" (citric acid, cream of tartar, baking soda) to engineer the type and amount of chemical that will float a model cell phone.

STILL FRESH

  • Group Activity: Team Building for STEM Challenges - In this team building activity, youth work together to lift an object by using a set of strings attached to a center ring. Each student grabs a few strings and must work together to raise the item in the center. The task requires concentration and communication and introduces the value of teamwork. 

Evaluating and Iterating Designs

  • Activity: On Target: In this activity, students are given a model of a zipline delivery system and are asked to modify or improve the technology so that will release a marble from a paper cup and hit a target. 

  • Webpage: Build, Test, Evaluate and Redesign: This webpage provides free materials for educators to improve their engineering teaching. This section provides questions to help youth evaluate their designs and determine how to improve them. 

  • Video: Iterative Design: How to solve a 'lion problem': In this Ted Talk, Richard Turere, a young student from Kenya, describes the process he used to develop a system to protect his cows from lions. He describes the ways he improved and modified his original idea until he found a successful solution. 

Persisting Through and Learning From Failure

Working Effectively in Teams

  • Activities/Blog: 10 Team Building Activities for Students: This blog outlines 10 team building activities that can be implemented to help youth develop the skills necessary to collaborate among peers. By accomplishing group tasks, students learn to listen, trust and support each other, while developing life skills such as communication and collaboration. 

  • Activity/Video: K-5 STEM Team Building Activity: In this video, students participate in a simple team building activity. Using one finger each, students must work together to lift and stack plastic cups. The task requires concentration and communication and serves as a fun and rewarding introduction to the value of teamwork. 

  • Blog: How STEM Lessons Help Teach Kids Productive Teamwork: This blog is written for parents to help them understand why so many of their children's STEM lessons are designed to be tackled by small groups, rather than individually. It clearly presents the benefits of group work in terms of communication, creativity, and perseverance. 

Identifying as Engineers

  • Video: Who Can Be an Engineer? You Can!: This short video shows a conversation between a teacher and her students as they begin to see themselves as engineers. The realization that students can one day play a role in the STEM workforce opens new doors for them. 

  • Blog: Children's Books for Budding Engineers: This blog provides an engineering book list for middle school youth. It includes inspirational biographies of engineers, stories of women inventors, and fictional literature highlighting engineers. 

Youth Voice Strategies for Practitioners

  • Best Practices: Techbridge Essential Elements: - Techbridge Girls’ Essential elements are guiding principles for high-quality, equitable STEM programs for girls. These essential elements are based on Techbridge Girls’ 18 years of experience, their evaluation and research, and research from the field.

Criteria and Constraints

Science and Math

  • Student Activity: Dance Pad Mania: A basic understanding of the science (electric circuits) is the first step in this fun challenge. Youth review and build their knowledge of electricity as they plan and design a dance pad that has lights and buzzer. 

  • Student Activity: How High Can a Super Ball Bounce?: In this activity youth explore how engineers might use elasticity of material to help them design products. Working in pairs, they drop bouncy balls from a meter height and determine how high they bounce. Youth measure, record and repeat the process to gather data to calculate average bounce heights and coefficients of elasticity. 

  • Student Book: The Girl With a Mind For Math The Story of Raye Montague: This NSTA outstanding science trade book from 2019 tells the story of how Raye Montegue, a girl with a mind for math, became a Navy engineer and how she fought sexism and racial inequality to achieve her goals.

Six Multiple Solutions

  • Student Game: Teaching Kids to Think Outside the Box: This activity promotes creative brainstorming by challenging students to come up with as many uses as they can for common, household objects. Items include a paper towel roll, a ruler, and an elastic band. 

  • Lesson Activity: Brainstorming Possible Solutions: This lesson can be applied to any engineering design challenge and provides a structure for eliciting many ideas from a group of students. This plan offers techniques to help students to keep open minds and encourage all ideas during brainstorming.

Using a Systematic Problem-Solving Process 

  • Video: Kid Engineer - The Design Process: In this Design Squad video, a group of young engineers use the engineering design process to design a bike trailer for groceries.

  • Video: The Engineering Design Process: A Taco Party : This witty video describes the steps of the engineering design process by likening it to throwing an impromptu taco party. It uses a fun example to describe the problem solving process engineers use.

  • Activity: Time for Design: In this lesson, students are introduced to the engineering design process, focusing on the concept of brainstorming design alternatives. Students come to realize that they can be engineers and use the design process themselves to create tomorrow's innovations.

  • Activity: Introduction to the Engineering Design Process: This activity is an introductory lesson that asks students to design a marshmallow tower. Students are introduced to the engineering design process and compare it to the process they used to create their marshmallow tower.

  • Activity Worksheets: Engineering Design Process: This set of worksheets can be used with any engineering challenge. They walk students through the design process by providing space for recording data and consideration of each step. 

Exploring the Properties and Uses of Materials 

Considering Real-World Problems

  • Activity: Engineering Solutions to Freshwater Problems: In this activity, students are introduced to six freshwater supply problems in various locations around the world. Students brainstorm their own ideas for solving each problem and then learn about the specific solutions that engineers have proposed.

  • Activities: Community Engineering: This website provides engineering challenges that are community-based and includes learning modules on topics like school gardening, classroom renovation, and designing an accessible playground.

  • Activities: EiE Storybooks: Every Engineering is Elementary (EiE) unit starts with a storybook that sets the context for the hands-on engineering design challenge. This set includes 20 engaging storybooks about a child who solves a real-world problem through engineering. EiE storybooks integrate literacy and social studies with your engineering and science lessons—and help students understand how STEM subjects are relevant to their lives.