People call Bernard Gordon an engineering visionary—and no wonder! The founder of three pioneering tech companies played a leading role in developing transformative modern technologies that include America’s first commercial computer, the first “instant imaging” computer-aided tomography (CAT) scanner, and digital Doppler radar.

Having accomplished so much, Gordon is giving back to the next generation of engineers. With his wife Sophia, he established The Gordon Foundation to support innovative engineering leadership training and engineering education reform, and last week, EiE’s home institution, the Museum of Science, Boston, was pleased to announce a $5 million gift from the

The world faces grave environmental challenges—climate change, pollution, overpopulation, loss of biodiversity, or ozone layer depletion—that we can address only with STEM knowledge and skills. That’s why the National Environmental Education Foundation created Environmental Education Week (EE Week) to promote environmental learning for kids in grades K – 12.

EE Week (April 19 – 25^th) is almost here. Making a difference for the environment often involves engineering new technologies, so why not celebrate with some hands-on green engineering?

The four engineering modules listed here are from the EiE afterschool programs Engineering Adventures and Engineering Everywhere. They’re free, fun, and fit perfectly with the themes and goals of EE Week.

Put an elementary curriculum developer alone in a room with the CEO of a start-up. You might think they won’t have much to talk about. Actually, launching a curriculum for kids is a lot like launching a dot.com. The most important thing is to listen to your customers.

That’s one insight I took away from the meetings I’ve been attending this past winter for a new National Science Foundation (NSF) initiative called i-Corps-L. The “i” stands for “innovation,” and the “L” stands for “learning.”

The Common Core State Standards for math are pushing elementary educators to re-think how to teach math. How do you go beyond facts and skills like adding and subtracting or the times tables to helping kids develop a deep understanding of math concepts?

Using Your Math Skills is an Engineering Habit of Mind

Engineering activities are an ideal framework for meeting this challenge. Since January, the EiE Blog has been exploring “engineering habits of mind”—ways of thinking that kids develop as they engage in hands-on engineering activities. One habit that engineering promotes extremely well is the ability (and inclination!) to apply math knowledge to problem-solving. Kids love to tinker and build stuff, and classroom engineering puts these natural inclinations right to work.

Last week I joined 3,000 educators in Washington, DC last week for Teaching & Learning 2015, a conference organized by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards to engage educators, policymakers, elected officials, and educational researchers in efforts to improve teaching and learning.  Here are some of the takeaways: