Integrating STEM in the elementary years: Your lesson plans may already hold the answer

It's easy to turn classroom lessons into engineering lessons.
It's easy to turn classroom lessons into engineering lessons.

Are you a teacher searching for ways to teach engineering in your elementary classroom, but want to start simple and are not quite sure how to begin?  Well, the answer may already be in your lesson plans.

As the mom of two elementary students, author of a children’s book about engineering, and an engineer, I have witnessed several of my children’s class projects that, with the addition of a sentence or two, become an engineering project.  When I can, I offer the teachers a few grade-level-appropriate sentences that relate the project to engineering.

Engineering Basics

Engineers do many different things, but the basic elements of the engineering method are generally the same:
•    brainstorming
•    planning
•    creating
•    modifying
•    team problem solving…Read More