Resource Library
Ready to inspire young inventors in your classroom? Below, find resources that can be used with or stand alone from our free invention curriculum.
Remember: invention is just one way to empower your students as courageous agents of change. At Project Invent, we weave together best practices for educators interested in design thinking, engineering, entrepreneurship, and more. This resource library represents materials we’ve collected along the way. We hope you’ll use it to innovate in your classroom — whatever that may look like!
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
TEACHING INVENTION
Invention Curriculum
Our digital curriculum — complete with 7 lesson plans and 30+ tools from design thinking, engineering, and entrepreneurship — is available for download on our Curriculum Landing Page.
General Resources
+ VIDEOS
- TED: How to Build Your Creative Confidence
- Vox: It's Not You. Bad Doors Are Everywhere
- Project Invent: Breaking Down an Invention
- David Lee: EdTech.org
+ TOOLKITS
+ ACTIVITIES AND LESSON PLANS
Elementary School
+ ACTIVITIES AND LESSON PLANS
- Project Invent: Design for Storybook Characters
- PBS Kids: Design Squad Global
- Future Design School: Innovating Elementary School
+ CLASSROOM TOOLS
Middle School
+ ACTIVITIES AND LESSON PLANS
+ VIDEOS
+ INSPIRING EXAMPLES
High School
+ VIDEOS
+ ACTIVITIES AND LESSON PLANS
+ INSPIRING EXAMPLES
- Student Assembly: High School Inventions Changing the World
- James Dyson Award Winners
- Design Indaba: The Shelter Box
+ READING AND PODCAST ASSIGNMENTS
- Everyone Deserves Great Design
- 99% Invisible: Combat Hearing Loss
- 99% Invisible: On Average
- 99% Invisible: DeafSpace
- 99% Invisible: Unpleasant Design & Hostile Urban Architecture
+ EMPATHY RECORDINGS
TEACHING ARDUINO
Arduino for Students
Bits to Bots: Arduino Lessons, Gamified
TEACHING MICRO:BIT
Our Design Sprints are stand alone mini-lessons which can be used in your classroom today to introduce Micro:bit skills through projects based on two of the 17 Global Goals from the United Nations. Check out each of them, or use them as a framework to learn about one of the other Global Goals. We’ve also added a Scratch Coding extension to sample web coding with your students.
Or sign up to learn about MICRO:BIT FOR SOCIAL GOOD from our friend Maddie Lowry, a STEAM Educator from Chattanooga, TN, in a course offered through Infosys Pathfinders
COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIP
Community Partner Starter Pack
The best inventions are designed with a specific user in mind. At Project Invent, our students build solutions to problems identified by local Community Partners. Check out our Community Partner Starter Pack for a collection of tips and tricks that we have learned over 5+ years of connecting communities and classrooms.
WEBINAR LIBRARY
MICRO-MAKER
Practice empathy at home with these micro-maker activities for kids. A great way to practice how to listen to others, build creative ideas, and put empathy into action!