Lessons & Activities

  

Lesson Spotlight

Compare different self-powered vehicles in this exploration of potenial and kinetic energy.

Have students pair engineering and data science in Data-Driven Energy Exploration!

Data-Driven Energy Exploration

In this new lesson students explore how to analyze data by building and testing one of three self-powered vehicles. They will contribute to a class data set, then iterate on the design based on the data. This lesson is great preparation for The 2025 Tech Challenge: Gravitate to Navigate. 

Grades: 4-12
Duration: 90 minutes

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  Like most of our resources, this lesson is aligned with the engineering strand of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).

  

Showing 99 - 108 of 159 results

  • Next Generation Science Standards Engineering Progression Summarized

    Grade Levels: K-12

    Chart of the grade-level standards that engineering design challenges meet. 

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  • More Plastic, More Problems: Using Ratios to Get Real

    Duration: Five to seven 50-minute sessions

    Grade Levels: 6

    Design a device that removes garbage from the ocean while minimizing the number of animals collected.

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  • Microbes: MicroByre

    Duration: 1 minute

    Grade Levels: K-12

    Video: Use this educational prompt to spark engagement: What's the smallest living thing you can think of?

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  • Medical Supply Availability

    Duration: 180 minutes

    Grade Levels: 6-8

    Explore the problem of medical supply availability through design activities and a series of video clips.

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  • Mayday on Mars

    Duration: Five 50-minute sessions

    Grade Levels: 4-8

    Use line plots to compare the trajectories of balloon-powered Mars vehicles. 

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  • Materials: Strawcture Eco

    Duration: 1 minute

    Grade Levels: K-12 

    Video: Imagine you had to build a house with a material other than wood. What would you pick?

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  • Making with Microbes

    Duration: Two 30 minute sessions, with 1-3 weeks between

    Grade Levels: 6-8

    Use fermented tea to grow your own unique piece of biomaterial and make something creative with it! 

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  • Looking to the Past to Build the Future

    Duration: Three to five 50-minute sessions

    Grade Levels: K-2

    Apply knowledge of homes from the past to design and construct a home that can withstand a windstorm.

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  • Just Dropping In

    Duration: 65 minutes

    Grade Levels: 4-12

    Explore how expansion is related to movement by designing a device that controls the movement of a dropped ball. 

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Looking for more than one lesson?

Try one of our Content Bundles

Artificial Intelligence

What is AI?

Computational Thinking

Get with the (computer) program

Data Science

Byte into these

Design Challenge Learning

Explore tips for innovation

Systems Design

Big thinkers, unite!

Social Emotional Learning

Engineering with empathy

  

These resources are made possible through The Bowers Institute

Supporting educators to develop problem-solvers locally, nationally and globally.