For almost 15 years, CU Boulder and other partners have been developing a one-of-a-kind curricular resource for K-12 educators to teach engineering.
The online library is called鈥攜ou guessed it鈥�, and it offers more than 1,550 free, hands-on, design-focused, classroom-tested lessons aligned with national and state STEM standards.
Now, a new partnership with the National Academy of Engineering is expanding opportunities for teachers to collaborate and share advice related to using these hands-on lessons鈥攚ith the goal to ultimately improve youth STEM education nationwide.
Two years ago, the NAE launched , an online community that connects educators who are designing and using engineering curricula in classrooms, after-school settings and informal learning environments outside school. The website (whose development was supported by Chevron) provides educators with background information on engineering, lesson plans and videos, but most importantly, with online message boards to exchange ideas and success stories.
With our new partnership, when educators browse lesson ideas on TeachEngineering.org, they鈥檒l see a new link on the right side of the webpage: 鈥淓ducators Share Experiences.鈥� In one click, educators can share with the LinkEngineering community how they used or modified the TeachEngineering materials and how it worked in their classroom. It鈥檚 sort of a virtual living room for teachers to share their experiences.
Besides helping other teachers, it will also allow us at TeachEngineering to make improvements to our vast resource collection, which already draws more than 3 million unique users (mostly teachers) each year.
You can read more about the partnership in . The NAE also partnered with the National Science Teachers Association, American Society for Engineering Education, International Technology and Engineering Educators Association, Council of State Science Supervisors and Achieve Inc. to create LinkEngineering.
All of us involved with TeachEngineering are committed to expanding K-12 engineering education nationwide and making it accessible to all. That鈥檚 why we practice 鈥渆ngineering on a shoestring鈥濃�攎aking TeachEngineering free to access and use with lesson materials that are inexpensive, about $8 on average for a class of 25 students.
TeachEngineering couldn鈥檛 have gotten to this point without the support of the National Science Foundation, the CU Boulder College of Engineering and Applied Science, an anonymous local foundation that supports this work鈥攁nd the 56 engineering colleges that have contributed great classroom-tested K-12 engineering curriculum to the collection.
Now, thanks to our NAE partnership, we鈥檙e making it easier for every teacher in the country to use engineering to make science and math come alive for youth in all grades K-12.
Jackie Sullivan is founding co-director of both CU Boulder鈥檚 Engineering Plus Program and the Integrated Teaching and Learning Program, which focuses on integrating hands-on engineering throughout grades K-16.