Do you need proof that driving is a dangerous activity? More Americans have died in car crashes over the past 100 years than in all the wars the U.S. has ever fought combined. More than 40,000 Americans die each year on the nation's highways, most as the result of high-speed collisions. In this video segment adapted from NOVA, learn how engineers developed the air bag, an important automobile-safety device now found in most cars.

Recommended for: Grades 3-12

Explore some of the wonders of modern engineering in this video from the Sciencenter in Ithaca, New York. Hear a diverse selection of engineers explain how things work.

In pretending, we learn to navigate with ease between real and imaginary worlds while learning the differences between them. Using our imaginations encourages original thinking, flexibility, adaptability, empathy, and the ability to generate multiple solutions to a problem. Pretend play helps us learn to think visually and spatially and to both capture and express ideas.

The purpose of this activity is for the students to draw a design for their own flying machine. They will apply their knowledge of aircraft design and the forces acting on them. The students will start with a brainstorming activity where they come up with creative uses for every day objects. They will then use their creativity and knowledge of airplanes to design their own flying machine.

In this video segment from Cyberchase, the CyberSquad designs an invention that will help them cross a swamp and also reach the top of a tall cliff.

This is the major research activity for my senior English students enrolled in MHS average English. It is a term-long project that coincides with their ongoing thematic portfolios in British literature. These portfolios with other class ingredients (including this research activity) culminate in a final showcase portfolio which is their final exam. Students pick (first come, first served) from a list of decades and become an English subject of that decade. In this role, they are to publish a documented newsletter reflecting a week (covering 10 areas) of their life in the decade. They must also generate an annotated bibliography to document their multiple types of sources (20). Students must report on 3 required items (popular writer's latest effort, a new invention from the decade and a new clothing fashion). The remaining 7 areas come from a supplied list: a concert they attended, a new medical discovery, etc.

Seminar on the creativity in art, science, and technology. Discussion of how these pursuits are jointly dependent on affective as well as cognitive elements in human nature. Feeling and imagination studied in relation to principles of idealization, consummation, and the aesthetic values that give meaning to science and technology as well as literature and the other arts. Readings in philosophy, psychology, and literature.

This lesson is an exciting conclusion to the airplanes unit that encourages students to think creatively. After a review of the concepts learned, students will design their own flying machine based on their knowledge of the forces involved in flight, the properties of available materials, and the ways in which their flying machine could benefit society. Students will also learn how the brainstorming process helps in creative thinking and inventing and that scientists and engineers use this technique to come up with new products or modify and improve exiting products.

This is a course about the courage to create, and to risk making mistakes in the quest for ideas that lead to a true innovation of a product, service or process. Creativity is the central focus, which might be defined as "the application of a person's mental ability and curiosity to discover something new. The act of relating previously unrelated things." More specifically, we are concerned with capitalist creativity, which means that solutions must be generated that are profitable and reflect bottom-line practicality. Students will experience what it means to fully engage their brains to discover the patterns that produce breakthrough ideas when attempting to solve business problems. Participants in this class will be exposed to a systematic approach to changing the way they create, identify and sell these ideas. They will also be introduced to a number of techniques, concepts and methods that can be added to their creative skills toolkit. The course is designed around real methods that have been proven to work in some of the leading corporations in the world. These methods are conveyed through both interactive and experiential learning approaches. Students will form teams for the purposes of developing creative solutions to problems and coming up with a "wickedly good" new product concept around which a venture can be based.

is a curriculum-oriented guide to the work and laboratories of the great American inventor. The site contains photographs, maps, and readings about the laboratories and the process of turning research into commercial products.

Learn more about the inventions and the design process and take a role in a team activity.

Inventing is fun and exciting and everyone can be an inventor. An inventor is someone who thinks of new ways to solve problems in the home, community, or even the world. These solutions are called inventions. An invention may be a new product or a new way of doing things. Inventions come about in many ways. Most of the time, inventions happen because someone works to solve a problem.

This course is an introduction to problems about creativity as it pervades human experience and behavior. Questions about imagination and innovation are studied in relation to the history of philosophy as well as more recent work in philosophy, affective psychology, cognitive studies, and art theory. Readings and guidance are aligned with the student's focus of interest.

Using paper, paper clips and tape, student teams design flying devices to (1) stay in the air as long as possible and (2) land as close as possible to a given target. Student teams will use the engineering design process to guide them through the initial conception, evaluation, testing and re-design stages. The activity culminates with a classroom competition and scoring to determine how each team's design performed.

A brief overview of patent law and its controversies and uses in nanotechnology.

This collection looks at inventors and inventions that changed our lives: the telegraph, photophone, animation, sewing machine, ice cream cone, nuclear fission, flight, and others. It includes Thomas Edison's journals and failed inventions, and Alexander Graham Bell's notebook entry describing the first successful experiment with the telephone (March 10, 1876). George Westinghouse, James Smithson, Benjamin Banneker, and Samuel Morse are among others profiled.

Provides an integrated approach to understanding the practice of engineering in the real world. Students research the life cycle of a major engineering project, new technology, or startup company from multiple perspectives: technical, economic, political, cultural. Emphasis on analyzing engineering artifacts, understanding documentation, framing logical arguments, communicating effectively, and working in teams.

Today many people assume that technological change is the major factor in historical change and that it tends to lead to historical progress. This class turns these assumptions into a questionŃwhat is the role of technology in history?Ńby focusing on four key historical transitions: the human revolution (the emergence of humans as a history-making species), the Neolithic Revolution (the emergence of agriculture-based civilizations); the great leap in productivity (also known as the industrial revolution), and the great acceleration that has come with the rise of human empire on the planet. These topics are studied through a mix of textbook reading (David Christian's Maps of Time"), supplementary readings (ranging from Auel, "The Clan of the Cave Bear" to Hersey, "Hiroshima"), illustrated lectures, class discussions, guest lectures/discussions, short "problem paper" assignments, and a final project defined by the student. Because MIT is celebrating its 150th anniversary in 2011, this version of the class will also focus on connections between MIT as an institution and technology in the history of the last 150 years. "

Students are introduced to the engineering design process, focusing on the concept of brainstorming design alternatives. They learn that engineering is about designing creative ways to improve existing artifacts, technologies or processes, or developing new inventions that benefit society. Students come to realize that they can be engineers and use the design process themselves to create tomorrow's innovations.