At EiE, we’ve learned that the best way to get kids interested in engineering is to connect to a subject they care about. Every kid is different—some might be interested in transportation technologies, while others would rather learn about ice cream. But we know that many kids share a common interest: caring for and protecting animals. Engineering can play a big part in the care and keeping of animals, and we’ve seen how much that can motivate kids to design and improve technologies. In honor of National Pet Day, check out these storybooks and in- and out-of-school-time curriculum units, guaranteed to be a wild success in your classroom or OST program!

So you’re teaching engineering to your elementary students. And today they’re designing a technology—perhaps a solar oven or a water filter. One group comes up with an unusually

What can you say when a windmill doesn’t work?

creative design . . . but it doesn’t quite work as expected. Now what?

For maximum learning impact, you want to be ready with prompts that help your students do their own problem solving. In other words, you need effective questioning strategies! You can learn more about these strategies when you attend an interactive online learning session from Engineering is Elementary, scheduled for April 26, 2017.

UPDATE: Happy April Fools' Day! We hope you enjoyed our joke this year. If this got you thinking about OST engineering, check out our real Engineering Adventures units!

Here at EiE, we’re always innovating exciting new ways to teach engineering to kids of all ages. Spring is a time of renewal. So we decided it was the perfect time to think outside the box and expand our units to subjects that today’s kids really care about—pressing issues like the containment of prehistoric beasts, ghost population control, and the sustainable development of time traveling devices. Read on to learn more about our three newest Engineering Adventures units!

At EiE, we’re constantly improving our curriculum as we discover more about how children learn. Our preschool pilot tests have been full of surprises and insights. Our testing has shown us how much preschoolers love to learn, but it’s also taught us that sometimes children’s knowledge of the properties of materials doesn’t override their drive to use the coolest-looking material—at least not at first! Katy Laguzza, the senior curriculum developer and lead of our Early Childhood project, shared a hilarious scene she observed in a preschool classroom that helped our team to understand the unique perspectives of preschoolers. The class was engineering a raft (a CD) to float a toy above water. To make the raft float, they would choose materials to attach to the bottom of the CD using Velcro.

There’s nothing quite like a room full of kids testing aeronautical technologies—it’s exciting, uplifting, and so much fun! When kids watch a technology they engineered fly through the air, it makes the act of testing designs into a spectacle and helps them visualize the amazing things they can accomplish when they use the Engineering Design Process. Between our in-school curriculum and our out-of-school-time curriculum, there are plenty of EiE units that will help the young engineers in your program soar to new heights.