One of EiE’s crowning achievements is our Professional Development (PD) program. Elementary educators who come into our workshops knowing almost nothing about engineering leave feeling like EiE experts. But as much as our PD staff would love to show every single teacher the best practices to implement EiE, they can’t be everywhere at once. So when a district or school needs to prepare many teachers to implement EiE and provide the long-term support they know their teachers need, they send their professional development providers to one of our Teacher Educator Institutes. At these workshops, PD Providers and teacher leaders learn more about EiE, improve their teaching practice, and have a total blast working with the EiE team! We will be hosting a 3-day Teacher Educator Institute at the Museum of Science, Boston on October 18th–20th, 2017. If you've been thinking about attending a TEI, read on to learn more about these one-of-a-kind workshops!

Summer is a great time to take your mind off of work and relax with your friends at a backyard BBQ. But for the EiE team, there’s no such thing as a day off from engineering. Whether we’re at weddings, graduations, birthday parties, or baby showers, we’re constantly imagining ways we can use the Engineering Design Process to improve the festivities. And we don’t mean to brag, but we’re pretty sure we’ve perfected the summer cookout. So this summer, give our super practical BBQ technology tips a try. We guarantee that everyone will be talking about your gathering for years to come.

Summer time is STEM time! Out-of-school-time educators can use our OST curricula, Engineering Everywhere and Engineering Adventures, in their summer programs—and parents can have a blast with STEM activities this summer, too! The EiE team can’t overstate the value of continuing to engage children in STEM activities when school isn’t in session. Check out some cool resources we found from parents, educators, and engineering enthusiasts to keep the STEM fun going all year long!

Have you used Engineering Everywhere (EE), EiE’s out-of-school-time program for youth in grades 6–8? This free-to-download curriculum empowers youth to become engineers and solve problems that are personally meaningful and globally relevant. EE units engage the youth in your OST program with context-setting videos, articles about real-world technologies, and exciting design challenges. If you’re curious, why not dip your toes into the water with Go Fish: Engineering Prosthetic Tails? It’s an EE unit that challenges youth to become biomechanical engineers as they design prosthetic devices that help animals in need. 

The pilot testing interest form is currently closed, but keep an eye on our blog and newsletter for Digital Storybooks project updates.

Last summer, EiE curriculum developers kicked off an exciting new initiative: EiE Digital Storybooks. As our August 2016 blog post describes, this project is an effort to better accommodate educators and learners by integrating our storybooks into a digital platform. Through collaboration with our outside partner, Alipes, these new storybooks are fully customizable. Educators can choose between abridged and unabridged versions while easily turning on or off features like vocabulary supports, discussion questions, and interactive animations. At EiE, we test our new products thoroughly to best ensure that by the time they reach the classroom, educators have a reliable product that works. We depend greatly on the feedback from educators and experts in the field. This fall, we are looking for classroom teachers to pilot test our digital storybooks. Click here to sign up for pilot testing and read below for more information about this exciting initiative.