This toolkit provides teachers with a number of activities to expand students’ knowledge and awareness of the advanced manufacturing industry. It is recommended for grades 6-12.

BEST (Boosting Engineering Science and Technology) is a middle and high school robotics competition whose mission is to engage and excite students about engineering, science, and technology as well as inspire them to pursue careers in these fields. Through participation in their project-based STEM program, students learn to analyze and solve problems using the Engineering Design Process, which helps them develop technological literacy the industry seeks it its workforce.

Computer Science-in-a-Box: Unplug Your Curriculum introduces fundamental building blocks of computer science – without using computers. Teachers can use it with students ages 9 to 14 to teach lessons about how computers work, while addressing critical mathematics and science concepts such as number systems, algorithms, and manipulating variables and logic.

In this collaborative math and art lesson, fifth grade art students design their own assembly line and work together to mass produce greeting cards. Ideas central to the profession of industrial engineering including productivity, efficiency, and quality are explored in a fun and age-appropriate way.

FIRST LEGO League engages younger students with real-world engineering by challenging them to build LEGO-based robots to complete tasks. Students develop critical thinking and team-building skills, basic STEM applications, and presentation skills.

FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) engages kids in kindergarten through high school in exciting, mentor-based research and robotics programs that build science, engineering, and technology skills, inspire innovation, and foster well-rounded life capabilities, including self-confidence, communication, and leadership.

For grade level 9, student pairs reverse engineer objects of their choice, learning what it takes to be an engineer. Groups make a proposal, create a work contract, use tools to disassemble a device, and sketch and document their full understanding of how it works.

From Make Their Futures: Ohio’s Manufacturing Industry, A practical guide for educators, lesson 1 asks students to consider how products are made, including all the people and processes involved in taking a dream to a reality. Lesson Plans include key takeaways, guiding questions, learning objectives and instructions to implement the activities and are aligned to the Science/Technical and Social Studies Common Core Grades 6-12 standards.

MIT App Inventor is an intuitive, visual programming environment that allows everyone – even children – to build fully functional apps for smartphones and tablets.

SparkFun offers products and resources designed to make electronics more accessible. This site offers over 2,000 open source components and widgets and offers curriculum, training and online tutorials designed to demystify the world of embedded electronics.

Tinkercad is a free, easy-to-use app for 3D design, electronics, and coding. Teachers, kids, hobbyists, and designers can use it to imagine, design, and make anything.

On this Web site, take your students on a behind-the-scenes tour of Arconic Power and Propulsion in Whitehall, Michigan, to meet the team using STEM to build products that keep us safe when we fly. Students also can take a virtual tour of Arconic Davenport in Davenport, Iowa, to experience high-tech robotics in action and meet the team that manufactures the wings of Air Force One.

Simulations can be helpful in building efficacy. This app provides students with games and welding simulations.