Experiment with chocolate coating on cookies! What a delightful way to learn about food processing and chemical engineering. Throughout this activity, groups collect measurements and make calculations. They conclude by writing...

How tall is your marshmallow structure? Using only limited supplies (including uncooked spaghetti noodles, masking tape, and one marshmallow), teams endeavor to support the marshmallow atop the tallest spaghetti structure they can build....

Challenge young engineers to design a one-bedroom scale house that would collect and maintain as much heat as possible. Special constraints must be adhered to, but creativity is also allowed. Diagrams and background information are...

Design and construct buildings with rooftop gardens. Junior engineers work in groups to build two buildings and then perform experiments to determine whether or not a garden affects the building temperatures. They graph and interpret...

Demonstrate how the Skywatch website works, locating your city via The International Space Station. Have cooperative groups use string and a protractor to identify an azimuth. When each groups' height has been marked, you will have a...

Who knew that one poster about George Washington could have so many learning possibilities attached to it? Here you'll find an attractive learning display on the first president of the United States, as well as worksheets and...

Design your own video game, engineer accident-proof highways, or even develop a new phone app! The Engineering Design Model can be used with all ages and in all subject areas to create a product, system or service. The resource explains...

Although preparation-intensive, this would be an unforgettable experience in materials engineering. Stimulate learners' curiosity with a slide show and then introduce them to the components of concrete. Small groups mix and pour concrete...

Attractive and logical instructions are provided for constructing a balloon-powered car. Young physical scientists measure the distance their car travels and record it on a pre-printed data sheet. The make alterations to improve the...

A well-laid-out lesson plan, this can be used in an engineering, STEM, or physical science course. Laboratory groups design a structure using pasta and marshmallows, measure its height and weight, and then discover the load that it can...

Groups of young oceanographers get to use action figures to experiment with the property of buoyancy! This memorable lesson plan provides detailed background information, a link to the laboratory worksheet, and thorough instruction...

Your advanced physics class will appreciate this lesson in which they use magnetic field sensors to determine the relationship between the number of turns per meter of a solenoid and the magnetic field produced. The materials for this...

After calculating the amount of energy in a wave, future engineers plan and present to the class a design for a seawall that will minimize erosion on the shore. Not only must they consider the energy that will impact the wall, they also...

Pairs of space scientists or junior physicists construct and deploy antacid-powered rockets. Through this activity, they observe Newton's Laws of Motion. The plan is detailed and well-organized. Resource links include professionally...

Investigate herbal medicine in the science or health classroom with this instructional activity from the New York Times. After a discussion about class members beliefs about and experiences with herbal medicines, pupils read an...

As part of a study of slavery in the United States, class members analyze documents related to the sale of slaves. They consider not only the text of the bills of sale but also what the appearance of the broadsides suggest.

How much do your pupils really know about the revolution in Tunisia? In order to inform your class and spark discussion, first create a country profile, comparing and contrasting Tunisia with the United States. Learners then analyze the...

Sometimes scientists learn more from unexpected findings than from routine analysis! Junior oceanographers dive deep to explore hydrothermal vent communities in the fourth lesson plan in a series of five. Scholars examine data and look...

The final lesson in a unit study of American slavery asks young historians to synthesize what they have learned about how slavery in America changed over time. Revisiting the many documents they have examined, they consider the economic,...

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.

Hold a competition in your science or engineering class to find out which group can design the most effective new style of paper cup from a single sheet of paper. Each group will be challenged by this activity and will have fun at the...

Written to introduce pupils to buoyancy, this activity has collaborative groups work to design a floatable clay boat. They first observe that a stick of clay sinks in water and then are given their own stick to reshape into a floating...

Groups are each given a pack of engineering cards and a worksheet to complete together. The cards depict different roles an engineer might play and can be purchased from the eGFI website. Because the lesson plan revolves around these...