Don’t let funding concerns get in the way of implementing a high quality STEM program in your school district. Learn how Title IV-A grants can help you give students access to engineering and a well-rounded education. The Every Student Succeeds Act offers opportunities to integrate STEM into elementary classrooms through Title IV grants known as the Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants. For FY 18, did you know that Title IV got a huge funding boost—from $400 million in 2017-2018 to $1.1 billion? This is a tremendous step forward for elementary STEM education. Now you have even more funds and flexibility to implement STEM programs in your school or district.

How much do you know about engineering? Could you spot common misconceptions and identify unlikely engineers? 

One of the most pervasive misconceptions is that engineering is too complicated for young children to find engaging. But did you know that 65% of surveyed scientists and graduate students reported that their interest in STEM began before middle school? It’s time to break stereotypes. Challenge those misconceptions. 

 Take our “Engineering IQ” quiz and find out your engineering IQ! Good luck. Have fun and share our quiz with your peers!

One of EiE’s design principles is to set all of our units in a real-world context to give students an idea of what engineers really do. Because of this, we’re constantly finding connections to our units in the news and in viral videos. But nothing makes us happier than hearing about EiE educators who make local and global connections in their own classrooms! We’re always blown away by the creative ways that educators inspire their students, and today we wanted to share some of their stories with you.

The EiE team has found that young engineers are most engaged when they’re working on solving problems that connect to their own lives. Throughout our in-school and out-of-school-time curricula, we highlight the relevance of engineering and technology. And because our units are focused on engineering design challenges set in the real world, our team is constantly finding videos and articles that relate to our units. Check out the real-world connections below and share them with your class to show kids how engineers are changing the world every day!

The engineering design process is central to engineering. Engineers use the engineering design process to create technologies. For our elementary engineering curriculum, we developed an age-appropriate five-step engineering design process: Ask, Imagine, Plan, Create, and Improve. Did you know you can apply this problem-solving tool to problems outside of engineering? Throughout the school day, your students encounter numerous problems that they’ll need to solve. Our engineering design process can give your students a process to solve their everyday problems more effectively and a chance to practice important 21st century skills like collaboration, communication and critical thinking. Over the years, educators have shared with us the innovative ways they adapted EiE’s five-step Engineering Design Process (EDP) to the help their students solve a problem. Below we share our favorite examples!

How much do you know about engineering? Think you can spot common misconceptions about the field of engineering?