Science 2: Building with Materials

Nurture your budding architects through these free, online design activities. These easy to follow design projects use simple materials to get kids exploring building design, landscape design, interior design, skyscrapers and more.

Columns, vertical structural elements that are strong in compression, are good at propping things up. Students use fill paper cups with sand, they also show that even hollow columns of a weak material like paper can be made surprisingly strong.

Students are given the engineering challenge to design and build doghouses that shelter a (toy) puppy from the heat—and to create them within material, size and cost constraints.

What can you make with things around the classroom or house? First, choose an activity you are interested in. Next, choose an item and spin the wheel to see what you could make.

Join teacher Cameron as he explores the science of building bridges. We examine various forces acting on structures and what you need to build the best bridge possible.

Ayoung designer named Nick demonstrates a painless process for designing and constructing attractive, sturdy chairs from cardboard.

How do you cool a building without air conditioning? Using an approach called biomimicry, see how architect Mick Pearce harnessed the ingenuity of termites to design a natural cooling system for the largest commercial building in Zimbabwe.

The activities presented in this video segment adapted from ZOOM demonstrate the properties of several bridge designs modeled using just a sheet of paper, some books, and lots of pennies.

In this video, students will watch how an aluminum boat is built. It takes a lot of special tools to do this!

In this video, you will watch the construction of a metal wagon.

By building canoes using only materials harvested from the land, Indigenous peoples are connecting to the past and ensuring their culture survives.

In this video, you will learn how to make a paper boat. This is an easy traditional design that is perfect for beginners!

In this video, you'll learn how the Métis made Red River Carts entirely out of wood!

What are the physical properties of materials? This video presents not only the definitions of physical properties but also concrete examples.

Help keep the Fidgits safe during a hurricane or earthquake. You need to design a way to bring emergency supplies to the trapped Fidgits. You'll need to design and build to get to the Fidgits.

Resources for teachers to use with students to explore how things can be built with different kinds of materials. If you click the links, there is a sign-in prompt -- but you can bypass the sign-in by clicking the image instead and you will be able to access all the Google slides associated with that image

Resources to explain buoyancy to students. If you click the links, there is a sign-in prompt -- but you can bypass the sign-in by clicking the image instead and you will be able to access all the Google slides associated with that image

A lesson plan for teachers that will guide students in learning about building with materials and about different kinds of energy.

In this lesson, students will learn how to make a structures that are stable and strong.

Students study the materials and designs used in construction tasks. They compare paper, clay, cardboard, styrofoam or other available materials to see which are the strongest—which ones resist bending, crushing or tearing—and which are most easily shaped and joined.

Here you will find activities are hands-on challenges that focus on the engineering design process and videos that explain building concepts.

Students construct simple structures based on the light-but-strong design of the geodesic dome using gumdrops and toothpicks.