Lesson ideas and starters
Starting to think about what you're going to teach? Need some inspiration for lesson planning? The table below should help spark some ideas.
If you develop a lesson that might interest others please consider sharing it by adding it to the Lesson Submission form.
Idea | Subject |
---|---|
Explore the story of how a child's skull, found in an ancient cave, helped answer one of our oldest questions: Where do we come from? Listen to the Radio Lab Podcast: The Skull | Anthropology |
Animation Challenge: create a face with pieces for the mouth, eyes and eyebrows that can be moved and synced to sound. | Art & Design |
Design Challenge: create a 3D model from a younger student's drawing. | Art |
Combine the old with the new to create art prints with the The Open Press Project | Art |
Adornment Challenge: design pendants, bracelets or superhero rings. | Design |
Puzzle Challenge: design a puzzle comprised of three interlocking separate objects. | Design |
Mr. Potato Challenge: design a base and modular pieces to attach to the base. | Design |
Ball and Socket: create an articulated hand or foot. | Design |
Lamp That: Turn an object into a lamp. | Design |
One a Day: Ideating, designing, modeling and making. Pick an object like a coffee cup and see how far you can push it. | Design |
Scan and modify a plush toy. | Design |
Create something for your school. | Design |
Create an object that solves a real-world problem. See Brookwood's 3D Design Problem Bank Project | Design |
Design, model and print an enclosure for a flash drive. Store all your 3D models on your personalized drive. | Design |
Connect it: design different ways to connect parts or explore how different designers have done this through hinges, ball and socket joints, magnets, etc. | Design |
Design an object with fillets or have students find as many objects as they can with fillets in a photo scavenger hunt. | Design |
Caliper skills: create an accurate copy of a real world object. | Design |
Reference drawing skills: create a model based on reference images. | Design |
Design a marble run. | Design |
Put a flower in it: design a bud vase (the more unexpected the better). | Design |
Mixing it up: make a model with a software application you have never used before. | Design |
Deconstruct a real world object on paper. | Design |
Design a model that has magnets. | Design |
Design a model that incorporates hardware. | Design |
Design a model that needs a balloon. | Design |
Design tessellations. | Design |
Look at woodworking for inspiration: www.craftsmanspace.com/free-projects | Design |
Substitute something Combine it with something else Adapt something to it Modify or magnify it Put it to some other use Eliminate something Reverse or rearrange it The above list is attributed to Alex Osborn | Design |
Design a time keeper. See 3D Printing Unlocks The Secrets Of The Portable Pork Clock | Interdisciplinary |
Design personalized themed book marks. | Interdisciplinary |
Design real or imagined mythological figures. | Interdisciplinary |
Design personalized themed book marks. | Interdisciplinary |
Design items that might have been owned by historical figures. | Interdisciplinary |
Design real or imagined temples. | Interdisciplinary |
Design measuring devices (sundials, astrolabes, clepsydras, etc.). | Interdisciplinary |
Design a new monetary system (coins, precious objects). | Interdisciplinary |
Pocket Traveller: create an 3D printed avatar, lend it to someone who is traveling, have them take photos of the avatar in unique locations, or use photo manipulation techniques to place avatar in different exotic, historical, or personally significant locations. | Interdisciplinary |
Animation Challenges: design/Plan a possible stop motion animation that could use printed pieces. | Interdisciplinary |
Internet Scavenger hunts:
| Interdisciplinary |
Create puppets and re-enact a reading or play. | Interdisciplinary |
Capture your town, neighborhood, school: Scan or model. | Interdisciplinary |
Imagine your ideal town/Design a better playground, school, neighborhood.For examples see: | Interdisciplinary |
Recreate your town X years ago, or X years from now.For examples see: | Interdisciplinary |
Make a tactile book based on Online Accessibility Training Guidelines for Making Tactile Diagrams and Accompanying Narratives by Teresa Kardoulias. | Interdisciplinary |
Travel the world: Around the World in 80 Models. | Interdisciplinary |
Explore Gaudi:
| Interdisciplinary |
Explore the seven wonders of the ancient world:
Or explore the New7Wonders of World:
| Interdisciplinary |
Excavation: Create artifacts from a real or existing cultures and have students hypothesize about the culture based on their findings from a mock archeological dig.For example see: Children discover archeology with 3D printed artifacts | Interdisciplinary |
Write step by step instructions to model a part in a foreign language. You'll know if your students understand your instructions by viewing their models. | Interdisciplinary |
Design objects for accessibility.For examples see:
| Interdisciplinary |
Design a model that uses the golden ratio. | Math: Geometry |
Explore Archimedean Solids. | Math: Geometry |
Explore Catenary Arches. | Math: Geometry |
Explore Conic sections. | Math: Geometry |
Explore Cuboctahedrons. | Math: Geometry |
Explore Hyperbolic paraboloids. | Math: Geometry |
Explore Icosahedrons. | Math: Geometry |
Explore Octahedrons. | Math: Geometry |
Explore Platonic Solids. | Math: Geometry |
Explore Tetrahedrons. | Math: Geometry |
Based on research, design a new species. | Science: Biology |
Design a fossil or skeleton of an invented species and determine its scientific classification. | Science: Biology |
Print out copies of bones, jaws,etc. and have students determine scientific classification. | Science: Biology |
Whose bone is this anyway? Print out bones and have students use their research skills to identify who it belongs to. | Science: Biology |
Create pieces for Rube Goldberg Contraption. | Science: Engineering |
Design a robot that can move forward using kinematics. | Science: Engineering |
Design an automaton. | Science: Engineering |
Design the tallest structure with modular parts. | Science: Engineering |
Explore and design gears. | Science: Engineering |
Explore Leonardo da Vinci's inventions. | Science: Engineering |
Explore and recreate a model from The Reuleaux Collection. | Science: Engineering |
Go fly a plane: Design an model that flies. | Science: Engineering |
Make Balloon Racers | Science: Engineering |
Wheels! Design a model that rolls. | Science: Engineering |
Design a machine that implements at least one of the following:
| Science: Engineering |
Modify the bridges assignment from BEAM, U.C Berkeley's Science and Engineering Outreach Program. | Science: Engineering |
Make a lesson from one of the following Project Gutenberg ebooks:
- An Introduction to Machine Drawing and Design by David Allan Low
- Boys' Book of Model Boats by Raymond Francis Yates
- Heraldry for Craftsmen & Designers by William Henry St. John Hope
- Home-made Toys for Girls and Boys Wooden and Cardboard Toys, Mechanical and Electric Toys by A. Neely Hall
- How it Works by Archibald Williams
- How to Draw a Straight Line
- Kinematics of Mechanisms from the Time of Watt by Eugene S. Ferguson
- A New Century of Inventions Being Designs & Descriptions of One Hundred Machines, relating to Arts, Manufactures, & Domestic Life by James White
- Modern Design in Jewellery and Fans edited by Charles Holme
- Practical Mechanics for Boys by J. S. Zerbe
- Some Protective Designs of the Dakota by Clark Wissler
- The Romance of Modern Mechanism:With Interesting Descriptions in Non-technical Language of Wonderful Machinery and Mechanical Devices and Marvelously Delicate Scientific Instruments by Archibald Williams
Modify or create your own Ed.Ted lesson:
- 3D printing -- the physics of objects | Emily Whiting | TEDxBeaconStreet
- 3D printing dessert: Liz and Kyle von Hasseln
- 3D Printing in Medicine Video - Brigham and Women's Hospital
- Anthony Atala: Printing a human kidney
- Bastian Schaefer: A 3D-printed jumbo jet?
- Beautiful artificial limbs: Scott Summit at TEDxCambridge 2011
- GIANT 3D Printers Make Ten Houses in Only a Day!
- How It Is Made: 3D Printing Filament
- Kinematics Dress by Nervous System - 3D Printed by Shapeways