State tests are right around the corner, and educators are working hard to remind their students of everything they’ve learned this year. That’s no easy feat! The recent Edutopia article “Why Students Forget—and What You Can Do About It” suggests “making as many connections as possible—typically to other concepts” to keep lessons fresh in students’ minds. Most students won’t make these connections on their own, so it’s important for educators to make these connections explicit. An engineering design challenge can be an effective (and fun!) way to make explicit connections to math concepts and strengthen students’ math skills. As students walk through the engineering design process, excited to design and improve their own technologies, educators can encourage students to productively use math to solve the problem. Below, we highlight EiE units that have strong math connections to demonstrate how educators can reinforce math concepts in a way that will stick.

Over the past two years, the EiE team has worked hard to make our 20 paperback storybooks available on a digital platform. This new resource will better accommodate the diverse needs of elementary educators and learners. With EiE Digital Storybooks, educators can choose between abridged and unabridged storybooks while easily turning on or off features like vocabulary supports, discussion questions, and interactive animations. In the last few months, we’ve pilot tested this new platform with a small group of educators. We’re now ready to test this resource on a large scale with educators across the country. Read on to learn more about the features of this new platform and to find out how to participate in this national beta test!

The EiE professional development team has been hard at work developing a suite of PD experiences that fit the diverse needs of elementary educators. If you're looking to improve your teaching practice this spring, it's the perfect time to check out what EiE PD has to offer. In February, join us for two free webinars: Fostering Engineering Habits of Mind in Students and Meaningful Integration of STEM in Elementary Classrooms. Or be one of the first to experience our brand new, three-part online professional development series, Intro to Engineering for Elementary Educators. And for an in-person experience, join us in Boston on March 8–9 for the hands-on, introductory Everyone Engineers workshop. Read on to learn more and register today!

The EiE team has found that young engineers are most engaged when they’re working on solving problems that connect to their own lives. Throughout our in-school and out-of-school-time curricula, we highlight the relevance of engineering and technology. And because our units are focused on engineering design challenges set in the real world, our team is constantly finding videos and articles that relate to our units. Check out the real-world connections below and share them with your class to show kids how engineers are changing the world every day!

EiE turns 15 this year, and we’re excited to kick off our 15th anniversary celebration recollecting some of our earliest failures and, of course, triumphs. EiE fans and long-time blog readers will know that one of our most-loved Engineering Habits of Mind is “persisting and learning from failure.” We wouldn’t have made it to where we are today without a few challenges along the way!