BIRDEE's lessons are 50 minutes long and are designed to facilitate student learning through guided inquiry utilizing the 5E learning cycle (Banchi and Bell, 2008). The lessons begin with BID warmups, referred to as “BID WOWs,” which illustrate how nature can be used to ground students’ thinking when applying high-level concepts of BID. Strong scaffolding is provided for learners throughout the lessons, while students appreciate an array of project and cognitive functions as they connect their ideas with personal experiences and apply their learning to new contexts.

Before you begin, read about the resources and the implementation checklist to help you navigate through the curriculum.

BIRDEE Lesson Planning

Lessons and documents are named by Unit.Week.Day. for easy access and to help sequence materials.
Ex: Lesson 1.1.1. is Unit 1, Week 1, Day 1.

Each unit is divided into two sections. Unit 1 is divided into the Launcher for Weeks 1-2 and Design Challenge for Weeks 3-7. Unit 2 is divided into Explore BID for Weeks 1-3 and the Design Challenge for Weeks 4-7. All lessons are available on this website and each has its own respective webpage. All documents, images, slides, and videos are linked within each day.

All hyperlinks to documents are view-only in Google Docs and can be shared to anyone with the link. Teachers may make a copy to edit the document. Lesson Plans and Student Handouts are also available in PDF format for download and may be converted to edit.

BID Warm-Up

Each day, students will begin their lessons with a Biologically Inspired Design warm-up. The purpose of the warm-ups is to provide examples of bio-inspired design, build background knowledge of different organisms, and make connections between biology and the engineering design process.
Day(s) of Week
BID Warm-Up
Description
Mondays & Fridays
BID WOW!
A BID WOW! is something cool that was invented with a little help from nature.
Tuesdays & Thursdays
BID Ideation
Students will brainstorm organisms in biology that could inspire a new product or solutions to the design challenge. Example: Brainstorm organisms that could inspire a new type of musical instrument.
Wednesdays
BID Inspiration
Students will learn about different organisms and their interesting characteristics to build background knowledge and inspire a solution to the design challenge.

BIRDEE Implementation Checklist

BIRDEE uses a number of technologies such as Padlet, Gmail and Govee for data collection. You may want to use these same technologies or substitute your own preferred technologies.

EDP / EDPL Integration

The Engineering Design Process is integrated throughout the unit (Unit 1 EDP Integration). Students will complete work using handouts, and document their work digitally using the Engineering Design Process Log.
The Engineering Design Process Log is an electronic tool that teachers can implement for BIRDEE (or any other design course) to help student teams document and track their design process. This tool has been seamlessly integrated into the BIRDEE curriculum for your convenience. This will be modeled on the last day of the Launcher, when students will individually enter their work to learn how to use the EDPL. For the Design Challenge, students will enter their work as a group, on a daily basis.
How does BIRDEE integrate the EDP throughout its curriculum?
How does BIRDEE integrate documentation through the EDPL?
Implementation:

Ready to get started?

Unit 1 Foundations of Engineering & Technology
Unit 2 Engineering Concepts