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NASA and DESIGN SQUAD developed this online workshop for educators and afterschool leaders who want to build their skills and confidence in guiding kids through engineering activities.

Whether you're experienced or new at this, you'll come away with insights and strategies for strengthening your kids' critical-thinking abilities and getting them excited about using the design process, the series of steps engineers use to arrive at solutions.

In this self-guided workshop, you'll:

Experience the design process in action. Learn and reflect on ways you can use the design process to tap into your kids' problem-solving skills and creativity.

Watch an engineering activity. See how easy it is to integrate the design process into the hands-on activities you do with your kids.

Get resources. Discover a variety of engineering activities from NASA and DESIGN SQUAD for kids in grades K–12.

Students act as civil engineers developing safe railways as a way to strengthen their understanding of parallel and intersecting lines. Using pieces of yarn to visually represent line segments, students lay down "train tracks" on a carpeted floor, and make guesses as to whether these segments are arranged in parallel or non-parallel fashion. Students then test their tracks by running two LEGO® MINDSTORMS® NXT robots to observe the consequences of their track designs, and make safety improvements. Robots on intersecting courses face imminent collision, while robots on parallel courses travel safely.

Students explore their peripheral vision by reading large letters on index cards. Then they repeat the experiment while looking through camera lenses, first a lens with a smaller focal length and then a lens with a larger focal length. Then they complete a worksheet and explain how the experiment helps them solve the challenge question introduced in lesson 1 of this unit.

On May 4, 1886, in Chicago's Haymarket Square, a bomb exploded during a labor demonstration protesting the police shootings of four striking workers. In response, the government and business groups nationwide strengthened the police and the military in an effort to curb labor militancy and public disorder. As part of its coverage of the Haymarket incident, one newspaper displayed this scene from Chicago's police headquarters, showing the construction of a criminal identification system based on photographs. The Rogues' Gallery" served as an archive to identify individual criminals (including political dissenters and labor activists) and to discern

This video reviews how photovoltaic (PV) cells work, noting that technological innovations are decreasing costs and allowing PV use to expand.

Physical Chemistry is the application of physical principles and measurements to understand the properties of matter, as well as for the development of new technologies for the environment, energy and medicine. Advanced Physical Chemistry topics include different spectroscopic methods (Raman, ultrafast and mass spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic and electron paramagnetic resonance, x-ray absorption and atomic force microscopy) as well as theoretical and computational tools to provide atomic-level understanding for applications such as: nanodevices for bio-detection and receptors, interfacial chemistry of catalysis and implants, electron and proton transfer, protein function, photosynthesis and airborne particles in the atmosphere.

The activity consists of a story and two experiments demonstrating how push and pull can make objects move.

This activity is a hands on investigation in which students will construct, and launch a trebuchet.

Student groups use a "real" 3D coordinate system to plot points in space. Made from balsa wood or wooden dowels, the system has three axes at right angles and a plane (the XY plane) that can slide up and down the Z axis. Students are given several coordinates and asked to find these points in space. Then they find the coordinates of the eight corners of a box/cube with given dimensions.

In this media-rich, self-paced lesson, students explore the industries that produce and rely on advanced technology and assess how their goals and interests may make them well suited for a career in this cutting-edge sector.

Students will compare and contrast adult plants and seedlings/young plants using pictures, journaling, growing plants in the classroom and comparing experimental plant growth with natural plant growth to learn why plants survive and where.

In 1918 and 1919 the Spanish influenza killed more humans than any other disease in a similar period in the history of the world. In the United States a quarter of the population (25 million people or more) contracted the flu; 550,000 died. In the early 1980s, when historian Charles Hardy did interviews for the Philadelphia radio program "The Influenza Pandemic of 1918," he was struck by the painful memories as many older Philadelphians recalled the inability of the city to care for the dead and dying. In these excerpts from Hardy's radio program, Clifford Adams, an African American from the South; Anna Lavin, a Jewish immigrant; Anne Van Dyke and Elizabeth Struchesky; and Louise Abruchezze, an Italian immigrant, discussed their shared experience in Philadelphia--shocked by the scale of the influenza outbreak, none could fathom the lack of respect shown for those who had died.

The students will play a classic game from a popular show. Through this they will see the probabilty that the ball will land each of the numbers with more accurate results coming from repeated testing.

Nineteenth-century laborers faced a variety of work-related ailments: from rheumatism and pneumonia to lead palsy and carbon monoxide poisoning. Yet governments rarely regulated workplace conditions and the United States lagged far behind industrialized European nations in such regulation. In the Progressive era, however, a movement to regulate dangerous industrial working conditions arose, and one of its most prominent leaders was a physician named Alice Hamilton. In this selection from her 1943 autobiography, Hamilton described her residency at Jane Addams's Hull House in the late 1890s and her participation in the Illinois Occupational Disease Commission.

To develop an understanding of modern industrial technologies that clean up and prevent air pollution, students build and observe a variety of simple models of engineering pollutant recovery methods: scrubber, electrostatic precipitator, cyclone and baghouse. In an associated literacy activity, students become more aware of global environmental problems and play a part in their solution by writing environmental action campaign letters.

This video looks at the global population and trends. It also explains the concept of carrying capacity and how a person's behavior influences carrying capacity. This video is part of the Sustainability Learning Suites, made possible in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation. See 'Learn more about this resource' for Learning Objectives and Activities.

This video describes the ecological footprint and its limitation. It goes into some depth on the computation on the footprint and what it means for the global population. This video is part of the Sustainability Learning Suites, made possible in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation. See 'Learn more about this resource' for Learning Objectives and Activities.

This activity is an opportunity for students to explore civil government and to present what they have learned about electric power generation in a persuasive manner

In this short activity, students or groups are tasked to make concept sketches that track the source of electrical power as far back as they can conceive. The concept sketches reveal students' prior conceptions of the power grid and energy mix, and lead naturally into a lesson or discussion about energy resources and power production.

This is a hands-on activity students design, build, and test. They compare the energy-generating capacities of vertical- and horizontal- axis wind turbine prototypes they have built as potential sources for power in a home.