Football season is in full swing and the EiE staff is excited to root for their favorite teams—and to toss around the personalized football that we were happy to receive from our friends at Colorado STEMworks! If the middle schoolers in your afterschool program also have football fever, we have a timely engineering activity for you to implement. Our Engineering Everywhere unit Put a Lid On It: Engineering Safety Helmets introduces youth to the field of biomechanical engineering—a field of engineering that combines mechanical engineering and biology—as they explore the design and construction of helmets. We’ve found that youth are most engaged with engineering when they’re working on problems that connect to their own lives, and Put a Lid On It is the perfect opportunity to engage your kids with compelling real-world connections to football—one of the most popular sports in the United States.

In every EiE unit, we challenge students to solve a real-world problem with the Engineering Design Process. But around our favorite holidays, we can’t help but brainstorm fantastical design challenge contexts that fit the season. This past spring, we suggested out-of-this-world EiE modifications for Star Wars Day. This month, we’re bringing you some Halloween-themed modifications for spooky engineering fun in your classroom! 

The Engineering is Elementary team is dedicated to making our engineering curricula accessible to all students, including English Learners—the fastest growing group of public school students in the United States. And because 77% of English Learners speak Spanish at home, we are fully committed to supporting educators in their instruction of Spanish-speaking students. Today, the EiE team is happy to announce two exciting project updates that support our mission to bring engineering education to all learners.

To date, 42 states and the District of Columbia have adopted Common Core State Standards for Math. What does that mean in the classroom? Students still have to learn to add, subtract, measure, and make bar graphs. They're also expected to develop a deep understanding of math concepts and be able to apply math outside the classroom.

Hands-on engineering is ideal for putting math in a real-world context, and Engineering is Elementary's Linking the E & M in STEM (LEMSTEM) professional development workshop is packed with creative strategies for bringing meaningful math and engineering integration to the elementary classroom.

The Engineering is Elementary team is committed to making our engineering curricula accessible to all students, including English Learners—the fastest growing group of public school students in the United States. We already have Spanish-translated student-facing materials available for our 20 in-school curriculum units, and you'll notice an exciting addition if you check out our two out-of-school time curricula. You can now download Spanish translations of the student notebooks for all 20 Engineering Adventures and Engineering Everywhere units!