Students experiment with various ways to naturally dye materials using sources found in nature—roots, leaves, seeds, spices, etc.—as well as the method of extracting dyes. Then they analyze various materials using statistical methods and tackle an engineering design challenge—to find dyes that best suit the needs of a startup sustainable clothing company.

Students further their understanding of the engineering design process (EDP) while applying researched information on transportation technology, materials science and bioengineering. Students are given a fictional client statement (engineering challenge) and directed to follow the steps of the EDP to design prototype patient safety systems for small-size model ambulances. While following the steps of the EDP, students identify suitable materials and demonstrate two methods of representing solutions to the design challenge (scale drawings and small-scale prototypes). A successful patient safety system meets all of the project's functions and constraints, including the model patient (a raw egg) "surviving" a front-end collision test with a 1:8 ramp pitch.

This site presents challenges faced by NASA engineers who are developing the next generation of aerospace vehicles. The challenges: thermal protection systems, spacecraft structures, electrodynamic propulsion systems, propellers, and personal satellite assistants. Students design, build, test, re-design, and re-build models that meet specified design criteria, using the same analytical skills as engineers.

A design challenge for creating a garden that provides protection from the sun.

This lesson presents characteristics of spacecraft models on mars to see how well they meet design requirements and then presents a design challenge for students.

In this service-learning engineering project, students follow the steps of the engineering design process to design an assistive eating device for a client. More specifically, they design a prototype device to help a young girl who has a medical condition that restricts the motion of her joints. Her wish is to eat her favorite food, pizza, without getting her nose wet. Students learn about arthrogryposis and how it affects the human body as they act as engineers to find a solution to this open-ended design challenge and build a working prototype. This project works even better if you arrange for a client in your own community.

Are you ready to BUILD? Get ready to launch an engaging community-building Challenge."More than 90% of the students and teachers who have completed our challenge said they would recommend it to others."Watch your students embrace entrepreneurial thinking as they create real-world solutions to today’s challenges. BUILD's Thriving Communities Design Challenge invites youth to use Design Thinking to answer: How might we build powerful, thriving communities where everyone enjoys safety, wellness, and economic freedom.

A hypothetical scenario is introduced in which the class is asked to apply their understanding of the forces that drive natural selection to prepare a proposal along with an environmental consulting company to help clean up an area near their school that is contaminated with trichloroethylene (TCE). Students use the Avida-ED software application to test hypotheses for evolving (engineering) a strain of bacteria that can biodegrade TCE, resulting in a non-hazardous clean-up solution. Conduct this design challenge activity after completion of the introduction to digital evolution activity, Studying Evolution with Digital Organisms.

Students demonstrate their knowledge of Newton’s 1st Law of Motion as they engineer a new method for putting
out fires. As they iterate through this design challenge, they gain firsthand experience in the design process.. (Note: No real fire is used in this challenge.)

Approximately 600,000 sea birds die each year by getting caught on hooks used in line fishing. A device called the Hookpod, invented by a UK company in Devon, has a clever solution to this problem. The fish hook is covered by a case so birds cannot get hooked. At a certain depth (below the diving depth of indigenous birds) a mechanism is triggered to release the case which floats to the surface and is retrieved to be used again. These lesson ideas provide an interesting practical idea to use a particle model to explain density and pressure in a gas. Students will then take part in a STEM design challenge to make a device to respond to a pressure change at a particular depth of water.

During this engineering design/build project, students investigate many different solutions to a problem. Their design challenge is to find a way to get school t-shirts up into the stands during home sporting events. They follow the steps of the engineering design process to design and build a usable model, all while keeping costs under budget.

Students' understanding of how robotic light sensors work is reinforced in a design challenge involving LEGO MINDSTORMS(TM) NXT robots and light sensors. Working in pairs, students program LEGO robots to follow a flashlight as its light beam moves around. Students practice and learn programming skills and logic design in parallel. They see how robots take input from light sensors and use it to make decisions to move, similar to the human sense of sight. Students also see how they perform the steps of the engineering design process in the course of designing and testing to achieve a successful program. A PowerPoint® presentation and pre/post quizzes are provided.

In the Future of Electric Transportation Design Challenge - a soup-to-nuts curriculum toolkit from Construct - you'll ask young people to find new and novel ways to increase use & equitable access to electric vehicles.

This comprehensive toolkit is intended for classroom teachers and other educators interested in running a multi-week or full-term design challenge with students. The guide is written with 8th-9th graders as a target grade level, however this curriculum could easily be adapted for both older and younger students: 5th-12th grade.

An optional feature in this challenge experience is to have students submit their design briefs (anonymously from their teacher) for the opportunity to be recognized by Construct and Industry Leaders interested in their concepts!

A teacher running this Transportation Design Challenge could connect it to multiple standards at multiple grade-levels in multiple subject areas.

Construct has facilitated several cohort-based challenges for middle and high school students, using this toolkit, and we are excited to be able to provide this curriculum at no charge to any interested teachers.

We are happy to answer any questions - you can reach us at info@constructlearns.org. We also offer additional coaching support.

Please download this Challenge and share it with your colleagues! If you opt to run the Challenge in your classroom, we do hope you'll reach back and let us know how it worked for YOU! With your feedback, we'll keep iterating and improving and work to make this a user-friendly, joy-provoking, flexible, rigorous, effective, skills-building and FUN curriculum toolkit for you and your students.

In the Future of Electric Transportation Design Challenge - a soup-to-nuts curriculum toolkit from Construct - you'll ask young people to find new and novel ways to increase use & equitable access to electric vehicles. This comprehensive toolkit is intended for classroom teachers and other educators interested in running a multi-week or full-term design challenge with students.

The guide is written with 8th-9th graders as a target grade level, however this curriculum could easily be adapted for both older and younger students: 5th-12th grade. An optional feature in this challenge experience is to have students submit their design briefs (anonymously from their teacher) for the opportunity to be recognized by Construct and Industry Leaders interested in their concepts! A teacher running this Transportation Design Challenge could connect it to multiple standards at multiple grade-levels in multiple subject areas. Construct has facilitated several cohort-based challenges for middle and high school students, using this toolkit, and we are excited to be able to provide this curriculum at no charge to any interested teachers.

We are happy to answer any questions - you can reach us at info@constructlearns.org. We also offer additional coaching support. Please download this Challenge and share it with your colleagues! If you opt to run the Challenge in your classroom, we do hope you'll reach back and let us know how it worked for YOU! With your feedback, we'll keep iterating and improving and work to make this a user-friendly, joy-provoking, flexible, rigorous, effective, skills-building and FUN curriculum toolkit for you and your students.

Students combine art, gaming culture and engineering by fabricating light-up patches to increase youngsters’ visibility at night. The open-ended project is presented as a hypothetical design challenge: Students are engineers who have been asked by a group of parents whose children go out Pokémon hunting at night to create glowing patches that they adhere to clothing or backpacks to help vehicle drivers see the kids in the dark. Student pairs create Pokémon character stencil designs cut from iron-on fabric patches, adding transparent layers for color. Placed over an EL (electroluminescent) panel that is connected to a battery pack, the stencils create glowing designs. Each team creates a circuit, which includes lengthening the EL panel wiring to make it easier to wear. Then they sew/adhere the patches onto hoodies, messenger bags, hats, pockets or other applications they dream up. The project concludes with team presentations as if to an audience of project clients. Keep the project simple by hand cutting and ironing/sewing, or use cutting machines, laser cutters and sewing machines, if available.

After second grade students learn about Earth's systems and maps, students are challenged with designing a relief map of a community park.

The Green Design Challenge is to brainstorm, prototype and present a design idea for a social entrepreneurship project focusing on green design that meets the design principles. Photo examples from ISKME's Teacher Innovation Workshop are included.

Students engage in the second design challenge of the unit, which is an extension of the maze challenge they solved in the first lesson/activity of this unit. Students extend the ideas learned in the maze challenge with a focus more on the robot design. Gears are a very important part of any machine, particularly when it has a power source such as engine or motor. Specifically, students learn how to design the gear train from the LEGO MINDSTORMS(TM) NXT servomotor to the wheel to make the LEGO taskbot go faster or slower. A PowerPoint® presentation, pre/post quizzes and a worksheet are provided.

The Patterns High School Science Sequence is a three year course pathway and curriculum aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The sequence consists of freshman physics, sophomore chemistry, and junior biology courses. Each course utilizes common instructional strategies and real world phenomena and design challenges that engage students and support their learning.  The curriculum is a combination of teacher-generated and curated open-content materials.  The Teacher generated materials are shared freely under a Attribution-NonCommercial-Sharealike Creative Commons License. Teacher workshops for each course are offered each summer in the Portland-Metro area. For more information, see our Professional Development page.

In this design challenge lesson students explore the Denver Public School District’s solid waste plan and discuss how their school can save or decrease emissions by reducing solid waste at our school.