Alexis Lewis is a teenage inventor who is on a mission to inspire other teens to innovate. You can read her story, and about the products she has invented so far in her young life, here. Alexis specifically wants middle schools to guide students with inventing curriculum, and has launched a website to help in … Read more
UPDATE 1/26/2021: I have created a Wakelet collection of Valentine’s Day lesson that you can visit here. Operation Valentine is an adorable project on Instructables that can be used for grades 3 and up to teach the basics of electrical circuits just in time for Valentine’s Day. You may recall the post that I did … Read more
There aren’t any fancy graphics on this video, but I love the message that Katie Correll gives in this short presentation. I keep trying to convince my students that engineering is so much more than math and science, that’s it’s not just about following formulas and rules but about learning how to use them to … Read more
I think these Halloween Paper Circuit templates from Makerspaces.com look like a lot of fun. You can download the templates for free, but will need to purchase the other supplies. The instructions are excellent. I plan to try this with my 3rd graders. Once they learn the concept, I am going to challenge them to … Read more
“That’s it?! But that’s so little!” one of my students said, incredulously, when I showed him the Raspberry Pi. I nodded. Another student explained, “That’s what a computer looks like. A lot of people think this [he pointed to the television monitor] is the computer, but it’s just a screen.” The other students, who mostly … Read more
Dr. Pauline Dow (@PaulineDow), an Associate Superintendent in our district, shared this recent TED Talk by Steven Johnson, “How Play Leads to Great Inventions,” in a tweet this week. Steven Johnson, you may remember, is an author I’ve mentioned on this blog because I was fascinated by his book, How We Got to Now. Johnson is adept at … Read more