Fifteen years ago teaching engineering to elementary students was considered impossible. Many people thought engineering concepts were too complex for elementary students to understand, but EiE’s Founding Director Christine Cunningham thought differently. She welcomed the challenge to develop age-appropriate engineering design challenges. Through this endeavor, she saw an opportunity to transform the way STEM subjects are taught overall. She formed a team here at the Museum of Science and dedicated countless hours to researching, testing, and designing engineering curricula. Now, she has published a book Engineering in Elementary STEM Education: Curriculum Design, Instruction, Learning and Assessment that builds upon the tremendous work of her team. Recently, I sat down with Christine to learn more about why she wrote this book and how she hopes it will help educators.

It may not surprise you to learn that there are a few Star Wars fans on the EiE staff. We wanted to celebrate Star Wars Day EiE style, so we started brainstorming the ways in which our units connect with the Star Wars universe. It goes beyond rockets and rovers: the Star Wars films feature levitating devices and high-tech helmets, too! Star Wars scholars have written books about the scientific virtues of Star Wars, and no one can deny how much of a catalyst it is for STEM enthusiasts’ imaginations. It has inspired NASA engineers to chase their dreams, robotic engineers to design R2-D2-style robot companions, and Australian scientists to design holograms! If your class loves Star Wars as much as we do, they’ll love these out-of-this-world connections.

You probably know EiE engineering curriculum aligns with the science curriculum you already teach. But did you know that we designed our curriculum to support literacy instruction as well? We believe that literacy resources, like our context-setting storybooks, enhance all of our units—for instance, students are engaged and excited about designing a maglev transportation system after they read our engineering story about Hikaru, a young boy designing a technology to help his family’s toy store. And when students take on the roles of farmers and bugs in a play about pest control, they’ll feel immersed in the world of agriculture and ready to design hand pollinators. Because we know literacy learning and engineering instruction can go hand in hand, we’ve designed additional educator resources for educators who want to strengthen the literacy connections in their classrooms and/or afterschool programs. 

Before you start raising funds to implement a new or existing STEM program in your district or school, you'll need to identify your needs, priorities, and goals. To help make this process easier, we're here to help! The planning questions below will help you focus and organize your efforts.

The world faces grave environmental challenges—climate change, pollution, overpopulation, loss of biodiversity, or ozone layer depletion—that we can address only with STEM knowledge and skills. That’s why the National Environmental Education Foundation created Environmental Education Week (EE Week) to promote environmental learning for kids in grades K – 12. This year's Environmental Education week starts Monday, April 23rd through Sunday, April 29th. How will YOU celebrate? We’re pleased to share seven curriculum units from the EiE afterschool programs Engineering Adventures and Engineering Everywhere that fit perfectly with the themes and goals of EE Week, call for inexpensive materials you probably have on hand already, and are super fun!