Have you been charged with integrating engineering into the curriculum at your school or afterschool program? Are you wondering how the heck that will work? Help is at hand.

When the Next Generation Science Standards were first released in 2013, the National Academy of Engineering quickly recognized that many educators could use some support addressing the new expectations around engineering education. The Academy mustered a committee of prominent K-12 engineering educators (including EiE’s founder and director, Dr. Christine Cunningham) to brainstorm a solution, sought input from teachers across the country, and, a little less than a year ago, launched LinkEngineering, a new website that’s expressly designed to help educators start teaching engineering.

Think back to when you were in elementary school. What do you remember most vividly? Was it listening to a lecture, watching a demonstration, or filling out a worksheet?  Probably not! Personally, I’ll always remember the time in fourth grade when I installed a light bulb in a cardboard box to make an incubator and hatched baby chicks for the school science fair.

Each Thursday on the EiE blog, we offer tips for teachers and answer your questions. 

Q. I'm a homeschool teacher and I can only afford the EiE Teacher Guide, not the Materials Kit. But I really want to teach EiE! Can I still use your curriculum?

A. Yes! EiE activities are designed to use easy-to-find, inexpensive materials. So it's easy (and inexpensive) to put together your own kit.

“Full STEM Ahead!” That’s the title of a recent Afterschool Alliance report on how afterschool programs can support in-school STEM learning. One organization that has fully embraced the rallying cry is Vermont Afterschool. Last year, the statewide organization landed a $120,000 grant from the Noyce Foundation for “afterschool and STEM system-building strategies.” A key component, says Tracy Truzansky, Vermont Afterschool’s project manager for training/STEM initiatives, is encouraging wider use of the EiE afterschool curricula Engineering Adventures and Engineering Everywhere.

Every Thursday on the blog we bring you teaching tips or news about resources you can use in your classroom

Every Engineering is Elementary (EiE) unit starts with a storybook that sets the context for the hands-on engineering design challenge. You can show the pictures to your students the conventional way, by holding up the book for everyone to see . . . but you can also download storybook illustrations from our website and project them on a screen or SmartBoard. Beyond the convenience of this approach, storybook illustrations are a terrific teaching tool for English Language Arts, and especially for the English Language Learners in your class.