Our lessons integrate Design Challenge Learning and engineering, and are adaptable to fit your learners needs while aligning with NGSS Standards. To help, we’ve created this guide that teachers can use to adapt our STEM and design challenge activities to their individual distance learning needs.
Lesson Plans and Tools
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Design Challenges and Lessons
The Tech Challenge 2021
Engineering Journals
Practice writing and documentation skills, whether in-person or virtual, with this journaling lesson.
Duration: 60 min
Grades: 3-8
Lesson Plan Video
Paper Engineering
Practice and improve the precision of learners' journaling skills by having teams build a paper table based on another team's engineering journal.
Duration: 60 min
Grades: 3-8
Lesson Plan Online Lab
Design Challenges
Project Playground
Students become playground designers tasked with designing and drawing a playground for themselves and a fictional friend using a persona. After sketching out their playground, they will pitch their design to get feedback.
Duration: Lesson - 60 minutes; Activity - 30 minutes
Grades: 3-5
Lesson Plan Tech at Home activity
Engineering for Earthquakes
Create a structure that can withstand the ground movement of an earthquake!
Duration: 60 minutes
Grades: 3-5
Lesson Plan Tech at Home activity
Just Dropping In
Explore how expansion is related to movement by designing a device that controls the movement of a dropped ball.
Duration: 65 minutes
Grades: 4-12
PDF Video
Brainstorming Ideas
Teams brainstorm and conceptualize a device that expands.
Duration: 60 minutes
Grades: 4-12
PDF
Hover Design
Build, test and modify hovering devices in a wind tunnel to expand knowledge of design and aerodynamics.
Duration: 50-60 minutes
Grades: 3-12
Lesson Plan Video
Solve the Fall
Design and build a device that can survive a drop in order to deliver emergency supplies.
Duration: 50 minutes
Grades: K-12
Lesson Plan Tech at Home activity
Cupcake Delivery
Create a wind-powered vehicle to transport cupcakes to hungry customers.
Duration: 20-30 minutes
Grades: K-12
Lesson Plan Tech at Home activity
Circle of Pong
Explore forces of motion, potential and kinetic energy in order to place a ball in the center of a six-foot circle.
Duration: 45 minutes
Grades: 3-12
Lesson Plan
Balloon Astronaut
Design spacesuits that can withstand the hazards of high velocity impact from space debris and meteoroids.
Duration: 45 minutes
Grades: 2-8
Lesson Plan
Energy at Play
Build a device that can move a ball to a target while exploring energy transfer.
Duration: 60-90 minutes
Grades: 3-6
Lesson Plan
Challenge Cards
Use these cards to introduce iteration and redesign to any design challenge.
Duration: 20-30 min
Grades: K-12
Student Challenge Cards (English) Cartas de Desafío (Español)
Computer Science
Computer Science Education Principles
Key principles for teaching computational thinking and computer programming in any setting
PDF
Computational Thinking Posters
Classroom visuals that define computational thinking and its elements. These foundational skills support computer science education for students of all ages.
PDF (English) PDF (Español)
Butterfly Algorithm
Students apply their computational thinking skills to explore the life cycle of a butterfly. They’ll create a simple algorithm to model the life cycle of a butterfly, then write this algorithm using conditionals and program it on a computer.
Duration: 70 minutes
Grades: K-3
Lesson Plan
Get in the Game
Use computational thinking (decomposition, pattern recognition, abstraction, and algorithms) to design your own board game!
Duration: 90 minutes
Grades: 3-8
Lesson Plan Tech at Home activity
Puzzling Procedure
Create an algorithm (instructions) for others to solve a jigsaw puzzle using computational thinking.
Duration: 40 minutes
Grades: 3-5
Lesson Plan Tech at Home activity
Demonstrating Change Over Time
Apply computational thinking to create or modify a computer program in Scratch that shows how the moon appears throughout the lunar cycle.
Duration: 180 to 240 minutes
Grades: 3-5
Lesson Plan
Engineering
Save the Fruit
Create a device that will harvest fruit from a tree and examine points of failure for iteration.
Duration: Five 60-minute sessions
Grades: 3-5
Lesson Plan
Energy Madness
Design a machine that can deliver a remote control to an immobile friend.
Duration: Six 50-minute sessions
Grades: 4-8
Lesson Plan
Bridging the Gap
Build a bridge over a variety of terrains to determine how different designs affect stability and strength.
Duration: Five 50-minute sessions
Grades: 4-8
Lesson Plan
English Language Arts
Building for Birdie
Apply knowledge of shapes to build a bird home that is structurally sound.
Duration: 150 minutes
Grades: K-2
Unit Plan Lesson Plan Tech at Home Activity
Shaky Shelves: Exploring Cause and Effect
Write a proposal to the mayor for a device that prevents product and profit loss caused by earthquakes.
Duration: Four 45-minute sessions
Grade: 6
Lesson Plan
Coastal Erosion: Designing and Debating Solutions
Make an argument supported with evidence for a solution to the environmental issue of coastal erosion.
Duration: Five 60-minute sessions
Grades: 6-8
Lesson Plan
Weight Distribution and Flight
Conduct weight distribution experiments with paper airplanes to gather information for a short presentation.
Duration: Two 60-minute sessions
Grades: 4-8
Lesson Plan Tech Challenge PDF Video
Engineering Takes Flight
Explore the different flight characteristics of materials while designing an aircraft.
Duration: Five 50-minute sessions
Grades: 4-8
Lesson Plan
Escape the Lava
Design a device to rescue researchers from a lava flow.
Duration: Four 50-minute sessions
Grades: 4-8
Lesson Plan
Animal Rescue
Teams gather information and scientific evidence to design a device that will help move endangered animals from one protected area to another.
Duration: Eight to ten 50-minute sessions
Grades: 4-8
Lesson Plan
Math
Purposeful Packaging
In this math unit, students will play the role of packaging engineers, exploring how to protect shipped items in innovative ways.
Duration: Unit: 150 minutes; Lesson: 90 minutes
Grade: 6-8
Lesson Unit
More Plastic, More Problems: Using Ratios to Get Real
Design a device that removes garbage from the ocean while minimizing the number of animals collected.
Duration: Five to seven 50-minute sessions
Grade: 6
Lesson Plan
Aim High!
Explore angles and trajectories to determine optimal angle and height to launch a paper rocket through a target.
Duration: 75 minutes
Grades: 4-12
PDF
Catch It, If You Can
Build and develop a scale drawing of a rain catchment system that will help conserve water. Explore challenges associated with drought in California and how water conservation can be part of a solution.
Duration: Five to six 60-minute sessions
Grades: 4-7
Lesson Plan
The Math Behind Circuits
Build and explore different types of circuits and make calculations to gain practical skills in building, visualizing and understanding circuits.
Duration: Two 55-minute sessions
Grades: 4-6
PDF
Mayday on Mars
Use line plots to compare the trajectories of balloon-powered Mars vehicles.
Duration: Five 50-minute sessions
Grades: 4-8
Lesson Plan
Traverse the Terrain
Design a Mars terrain navigation test using coordinate planes to help NASA prepare for the next rover mission.
Duration: Four 50-minute sessions
Grades: 4-8
Lesson Plan
Science
Scientist Stories
Reflect on the stories of a diverse set of role models through the Scientist Stories video series in our Solve For Earth exhibition. Students will explore their preconceived notions of scientists, connect with science careers and recognize the qualities they share with scientists.
Duration: 60 minutes
Grades: 6-12
Lesson Videos
Algae String
Design and create colorful string creations from a natural polymer, alginate.
Duration: Lesson - 150 minutes; Activity - 2 hours
Grades: 6-8
Lesson Activity
Wildfire Warning
Design a wind detection device, an anemometer, that could warn community members of the strength and direction of high winds during a wildfire.
Duration: Unit - 150 minutes; Lesson - 90 minutes
Grades: 6-8
Unit Lesson
Storm Shield: What Living Things Need
Design and build a shelter to keep animals safe in severe weather.
Duration: Five 45-minute sessions
Grade: K
Lesson Plan
No Soil, No Problem
Using scientific evidence and knowledge, develop arguments on what plants need for growth.
Duration: Three to five 60-minute sessions
Grades: 4-8
Lesson Plan
Investigating Lift
Build a device to explore the force of lift in a hovercraft.
Duration: 65-80 minutes
Grades: 6-8
Lesson Plan
Save the Hiker
Build a device that will deliver life-saving treatment to someone in a hazardous situation.
Duration: Six 50-minute sessions
Grades: 4-8
Lesson Plan
Go Rover Go
Learn how modifying building materials can convert potential energy into kinetic energy.
Duration: Four 50-minute sessions
Grades: 4-8
Lesson Plan
Green Pennies
Experiment with different oxidizing compounds to turn pennies green…and back to copper.
Duration: 30 minutes of set-up, 5 days of observation
Grades: 5-8
Lesson Plan Tech at Home activity
Cooking with the Sun
Engineer a solar oven and use solar energy and radiation to warm a chosen food item.
Duration: 40 minutes to build, 1 hour to "cook"
Grades: 3-8
Lesson Plan Tech at Home activity
Social Science
Irrigation Situation
Use the design process to create a hillside garden irrigation system that maximizes water efficiency.
Duration: Lesson - 90 minutes; Unit - 150 minutes
Grades: 3-5
Lesson Unit
Looking to the Past to Build the Future
Apply knowledge of homes from the past to design and construct a home that can withstand a windstorm.
Duration: Five to seven 50-minute sessions
Grades: K-2
Lesson Plan
The Tech for Global Good Design Challenges
The Tech for Global Good Design Challenges engage your Grade 7-12 students in taking a systematic and empathetic approach to addressing social and engineering problems faced around the world. Each challenge includes background videos, student packets, a lesson plan and standards connections.
Data Challenge
Analyze how The Tech for Global Good laureates use data as a tool to solve problems and effect change. Students will then work in groups to create a plan for collecting and using data to address a problem in their own sphere of influence.
Vaccine Challenge
Consider the complexities of infrastructure, public health and sociocultural landscapes in designing a solution to distribute a life saving vaccine.
Lesson Plan Standards connections
Videos:
Student Booklets:
Save the Species Challenge
Develop a solution that assists governments in protecting species in designated areas.
Videos:
Student Booklets:
