Adding engineering into your middle school classroom is a great way to deepen your students’ learning and problem-solving skills. Take this self-guided tutorial and learn to identify common engineering myths, build your understanding of the engineering design process and how to apply it to hands-on activities, and get concrete steps you can use to easily integrate engineering. This training is offered at three grade bands: Elementary, Middle and High.

1. Bringing Engineering to Life
in Middle School
An online tutorial for middle school teachers
1

2. 2
SECTIONS OF
THIS TUTORIAL
1. Why Teach Engineering?
2. Engineering Myths and Truths
3. The EDP (Engineering Design
Process)
4. Classroom Connections
5. Engineering Suggestions

3.  You be a better teacher
 Your students be better learners
3
ENGINEERING CAN HELP
WHY TEACH
ENGINEERING?

4. 4
Engineering takes advantage of children’s inherent
interest in how things work and offers a practical,
efficient way to teach STEM.

5. 5
Engineering often improves
learning and student achievement
in science and math.
WHY TEACH
ENGINEERING?
Source:
“Why Use Engineering in Education?”
National Academy of Engineering

6. 6
Engineering “clarifies the relevance
of science, technology, engineering,
and mathematics to everyday life.”
WHY TEACH
ENGINEERING?
Source:
Next Generation Science Standards

7. WHY TEACH ENGINEERING?
7
The E in STEM pulls
it all together.

8. 8
Doing engineering inspires a much
broader range of students than
you might expect to consider a
STEM-based career.
WHY TEACH
ENGINEERING?

9. 9
Why should kids wait until high
school to do what comes naturally
to them now, when engineering
can help them learn in so many
ways?WHY TEACH
ENGINEERING?
WHY NOT?

10. 10
ENGINEERING
MYTHS AND
TRUTHS
MYTH
Engineers are guys in hard
hats who do math problems
all day.

11. ENGINEERING
MYTHS AND
TRUTHS
11
Engineers are diverse and
come to the profession with
a passion to solve real-
world problems.
TRUTH

12. 12
There are many stereotypes
about engineering.

13. 13
Engineering
Myths and Truths
Engineering is basically the same
thing as science, and you’re
already teaching science.
MYTH
ENGINEERING
MYTHS AND
TRUTHS

14. 14
ENGINEERING
MYTHS AND
TRUTHS
They are different and
complementary:
 Science answers questions
through experimentation.
 Engineering solves problems
through design.
TRUTH

15. 15
Science is familiar and you know
how to teach it, but engineering is
foreign territory.
ENGINEERING
MYTHS AND
TRUTHS
MYTH

16. 16
Science and engineering overlap.
Examples of skills necessary to both:
 Plan and carry out investigations.
 Create models.
 Construct and interpret graphs.
 Evaluate competing design solutions.
TRUTH
ENGINEERING
MYTHS AND
TRUTHS

17. 17
Engineering is dry and pragmatic,
focused on facts and numbers. It’s
not imaginative or artistic.
ENGINEERING
MYTHS AND
TRUTHS
MYTH

18. 18
Engineers use their creativity and
analytical skills to invent, design, and
build things that matter. By finding
imaginative and practical solutions,
engineers are changing the world all
the time.ENGINEERING
MYTHS AND
TRUTHS
TRUTH

19. 19
Only certain kinds of kids are going
to become engineers, and there
aren’t that many of them.
ENGINEERING
MYTHS AND
TRUTHS
MYTH

20. 20
Exposing middle schoolers to
the wide range of
opportunities in engineering
gets many of them really
excited about becoming
engineers.
TRUTH
ENGINEERING
MYTHS AND
TRUTHS

21. 21
You need a professional degree
in math, technology, or physics
in order to understand or teach
engineering at the middle
school level.
ENGINEERING
MYTHS AND
TRUTHS
MYTH

22. 22
No particular professional degree
required—just curiosity from you
and your students to explore how
things work.
ENGINEERING
MYTHS AND
TRUTHS
TRUTH

23. 23
You also need to understand the
Engineering Design Process, which
you are about to learn.
ENGINEERING
MYTHS AND
TRUTHS
TRUTH

24. THE EDP
24
All engineers use the
engineering design
process (EDP).

25. 25
THE EDP
What does the EDP look like in a
middle school classroom?

26. BUILD A CANDY DISPENSER ACTIVITY
Your Challenge
Make a candy dispenser that gives
out a little bit of candy at a time.
Materials Include
• Glue gun
• X-ACTO knife
• Pieces of candy
• Paper plate
• CD/DVD
• Craft sticks
• Tape

27. 27
THE EDP
The Problem
Make a dispenser that gives
a little bit of candy at a
time.

28. 28
THE EDP
The Specs
• Use at least 10 of the
activity materials
• The dispenser must
dispense only a few pieces
of candy at a time

29. 29
THE EDP
Brainstorm
• Examine materials
• Discuss their uses,
advantages, drawbacks
• Explore potential solutions

30. 30
THE EDP
Design
• Choose one idea
• Draw pictures
• Discuss how it will work
• Ask what might not work

31. 31
THE EDP
Build
• Designs will evolve
• It’s a messy, loud stage
• It’s worth it…it makes
engineering come to life!

32. 32
THE EDP
• Set up testing zone
• Record results
• Redesign to improve
• Add requirements for kids
who need more of a challenge
Test, Improve, Redesign

33. 33
THE EDP
Share It!
• Students present their
solutions
• Discuss what worked, what
didn’t
• Say what they liked about
each other’s designs

34. 34
Engineers move back and forth
among these steps. They might share
results at any point, for example, and
use feedback to go back to
brainstorming.
THE EDP
The Process

35. 35
Students will try to skip steps, like
design, and go right to build.
When planning, decide how much
time students will spend on each
step. You’ll also notice that some
activities emphasize certain steps
more than others.
TIP
THE EDP

36.  Engineering design process
 Scientific inquiry
 Project-based learning
36
CLASSROOM
CONNECTIONS
Three Teaching Methods

37. 37
 Creativity
 Communication
 Critical Thinking
 Collaboration
Share Key Characteristics

38. 38
In all three approaches, the
teacher becomes a guide and
trouble shooter, rather than main
conveyor of information.
CLASSROOM
CONNECTIONS
STUDENTS LEARN BY DOING

39. 39
The second part of the formula is
combining the messages with a
hands–on activity
Learning by doing helps students understand why
failure is such an important part of the process.

40. 40
A great example of how PBL and EDP
work together is Future City.
CLASSROOM
CONNECTIONS

41. 41
Students spend four months researching, designing, and
building cities of the future.

42. 42
CLASSROOM
CONNECTIONS
• Storm water management
• Waste management
• Public spaces
As students design their cities,
they also explore an urban
sustainability issue. Past
examples include…

43. • Project plan
• Virtual City
• City Essay
• City Model
• City Presentation
43
Future City project deliverables:
CLASSROOM
CONNECTIONS

44. 44

45. • Reveal underlying technology
• Reinforce science and math concepts
• Motivate students: they’re fun!
45
CLASSROOM
CONNECTIONS
ENGINEERING ACTIVITIES

46. 46
CLASSROOM
CONNECTIONS
Deepen students’ exploration of
topics that are already part of
the curriculum.
ENGINEERING ACTIVITIES

47. 47
DiscoverE Activity Classroom Topic
Build an air-powered gondola Propulsion
Make a water filtration
system
Clean water
Design a spaceship Space exploration
Make a glowing light stick Electrical circuits

48. 48
If you are doing a social studies unit
on science, technology, and society,
add a real-world engineering project.
CLASSROOM
CONNECTIONS
ADD ENGINEERING

49. 49
CLASSROOM
CONNECTIONS
A local city planner or engineer
to talk about planning a
playground. Students may be
surprised to hear how much
thought goes into the design of
a swing, slide, or other
equipment.
INVITE

50. 50
Next, do the DiscoverE
marble run activity.
CLASSROOM
CONNECTIONS

51. MARBLE RUN ACTIVITY
Your Challenge
Create a track that keeps a marble
rolling longer than any other team’s
does.
Materials Include
• Stopwatch
• Plastic cups
• Marbles
• Paper towel tubes
• Masking tape

52. 52
Expand on what students learned
by studying an actual roller
coaster, preferably a local one.
Or show them this next video…
CLASSROOM
CONNECTIONS

53. 53
Show students the Sum of All Thrills video about
designing roller coasters.

54. 54
CLASSROOM
CONNECTIONS
Find activities at:
DiscoverE.org

55. 55
ENGINEERING
SUGGESTIONS
Invite engineers to your
classroom to talk to your
students.
IDEA 1

56. 56
ENGINEERING
SUGGESTIONS
 Local university
 Local chapters of engineering
societies
 Local engineering companies
FIND GUEST ENGINEERS

57. 57
Connect engineering to what
matters to middle schoolers. For
example, they can do the
DiscoverE activity Design a Shoe,
and then see a video about
designing a skateboarding shoe.
ENGINEERING
SUGGESTIONS
IDEA 2

58. 58
Show the Extreme Enough? Video.

59. 59
In your professional learning
community or grade-level team,
see where engineering could be
added.
ENGINEERING
SUGGESTIONS
IDEA 3

60. 60
Ask students to watch, listen, or
read a news article about a
problem in their community that
engineers are solving.
ENGINEERING
SUGGESTIONS
IDEA 4

61. 61
That’s it. You’re ready to bring
engineering alive for your students.
How are you going to begin?

62. Funding for this training was provided by: