Students follow the engineering design process to design and build a usable device to propel school T-shirts up into the stands during home sporting events while keeping costs under budget.

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Filed under: Class Activities, Grades 6-8, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Grades 9-12, Grades 9-12, Lesson Plans | Comments Off on Flying T-Shirt Challenge

Tags: catapult, cheerleaders, Class Activities, Engineering Design Process, forces, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Lesson Plan, maker challenges, motion, Physics, Sports, T-shirt cannon, teachengineering, tools

Hurricanes, earthquakes, and other destructive events offer timely “teachable moments” about the role of engineers in improving weather forecasts and reducing the toll from natural disasters. eGFI Teachers’s collection of activities, feature articles, and other resources can help you integrate engineering into your classes – and inspire the next generation of “crisis” engineers.

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Filed under: Class Activities, Grades 6-8, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Grades 9-12, Grades K-5, Grades K-5, Lesson Plans, Special Features | Comments Off on Disaster Engineering

Tags: Army Corps of Engineers, build, building, Class Activities, data, Disaster relief, drought, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, erosion, forces, hurricane, Hurricane Maria, measure, Mining, motion, National Guard, natural disasters, Physics, rescue, storm, Structural Engineering, Teacher Resources, Technology, tornado, Weather, Web Resources

In this engineering design challenge about building in hurricane-prone regions, students learn that a solid base helps stabilize a structure by constructing, testing, and redesigning a tower that can support a tennis ball at least 18 inches off the ground while withstanding the wind from a fan.
Note: While suitable for all ages, this activity works best with upper elementary students and older.

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Filed under: Class Activities, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Grades K-5 | Comments Off on Building for Hurricanes

Tags: build, Civil Engineering, Class Activities, Engineering Design, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Grades K-5, hurricane, skyscraper

Stitched circuits and musical instruments made from marshmallows are among the latest offerings in the 2017 Maker Camp, a virtual DIY summer camp sponsored by Make magazine. Many activities could work well as classroom projects, too!

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Filed under: Class Activities, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Grades K-5, K-12 Outreach Programs, Web Resources | Comments Off on Virtual Maker Camp

Tags: Class Activities, DIY, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Grades K-5, Internet Resources, Make magazine, Maker camp, STEAM, Summer Camps & Programs (Students), virtual field trips, Web Resources

High school students working in groups of three to four learn about the primary causes and impacts of coastal erosion, and use elevation data to construct profiles of a beach over time or to compare several beaches, make inferences about the erosion process, and discuss how humans should respond.

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Filed under: Class Activities, Grades 9-12, Grades 9-12, Grades 9-12, Lesson Plans | Comments Off on Who Moved the Beach?

Tags: beach, Civil Engineering, Class Activities, coastal erosion, coastal management, data analysis, Earth Science, Environmental Engineering, erosion, Grades 9-12, jetties, Lesson Plan, NOAA, USGS

Along with free activity guides for its signature JVInvenTeams innovation contest for students in grades 7 to 10,,the Lemelson-MIT Program is presenting three-day summer workshops this summer designed to help teachers encourage middle and high school students to think and act like inventors while developing solutions to real world problems.

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Filed under: For Teachers, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, K-12 Outreach Programs, Special Features, Web Resources | Comments Off on Lemelson-MIT Resources for Teaching Invention

Tags: Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Internet Resources, invention, MIT Lemelson, Professional Development, Programs for Teachers, Resources for Teachers, student inventors, Teacher Training, Web Resources

Every day, millions of ordinary people young and old help advance knowledge in fields as diverse as astronomy and zoology. These “citizen” scientists and engineers record bird sightings and rainfall amounts, classify stars, monitor lead in local tap water, count frogs, and even discover comets! Here’s a sampling of projects. Where will you or your students volunteer?

Some projects spur new legislation. Others inspire community involvement and a lifelong interest in STEM.

Here’s a sampling of projects. Where will you or your students dive in?

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Filed under: Class Activities, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Grades K-5, Special Features, Web Resources | Comments Off on Join a Citizen STEM Project!

Want to engage your students while helping scientists get the “big picture” on what’s happening to bird populations worldwide? Grab some binoculars and join the annual Great Backyard Bird Count, which takes place February 17-20, 2017.

One of the oldest and biggest citizen-science projects is the annual Great Backyard Bird Count, held this year from February 17 to 20

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Filed under: Class Activities, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Grades K-5, K-12 Outreach Programs, Special Features, Web Resources | Comments Off on STEM Takes Wing!

Tags: Citizen Science, Class Activities, cornell ornithology lab, Curriculum, Events, Great Backyard Bird Count, national audubon society, STEM education

In this lesson, high school students learn the value of writing and art in science and engineering by designing visual diagrams to communicate the results of thermal conductivity (heat flow) experiments they have conducted to anyone with little background on the subject. The principles of visual design include contrast, alignment, repetition, and proximity, and involve such elements as the use of lines, color, texture, shape, size, value, and space.

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Filed under: Class Activities, Grades 9-12, Grades 9-12, Lesson Plans | Comments Off on Visualize STEM

Tags: Art, Class Activities, diagram, experiment, Grades 9-12, graphic design, heat flow, Presentations, STEAM, Technical Communications, thermal imaging, writing