Bring meaningful engineering experineces into your classroom – at your own pace.
You registered for the Engineer in Residence program because you wanted your students to experience engineering through authentic problems, ideas and people. Although we have not yet been able to match your classroom with an Engineer in Residence, you don’t have to wait to get started.
EIR Anytime gives you flexible, teacher-led engineering experiences you can use whenever they fit your classroom. No engineering background is required. Choose one experience or explore several throughout the year.
Your EIR registration can remain eligible for future matching opportunities, subject to volunteer availability. EIR Anytime is a flexible way to begin now; it does not replace the relationship with a dedicated Engineer in Residence.
How EIR Anytime works
Start where it makes sense for your class. Choose your grade band to personalize the guidance, then use one experience or combine several throughout the year.
Choose your grade band
We’ll tailor the language, questions and activity adaptations for your students.
Talk about engineering in a way that opens doors
Use a short, age-appropriate definition and conversation prompt to introduce engineering.
Choose an experience
Pick any experience that fits your students, curriculum and available time. There is no required order or schedule.
STEP 1
Choose your grade band
Choose the grade band that best fits your students. Each option includes age-appropriate language and guidance to help students understand what engineering really is. You can also borrow ideas from the grade band above or below yours.
K-3
Every child is an engineer
Grades 4-6
Design, Test, Try Again
Grades 7-9
Engineering the Real World
Grades 10-12
Engineering My Future
STEP 2
Talk about engineering in a way that opens doors
Every EIR Anytime pathway begins with a short conversation about what engineering really is. The words and examples we use can help students see engineering as creative, collaborative and connected to the things they care about.
The Forward Engineering Collective’s How to Talk to Kids About Engineering guide provides age-appropriate messages, discussion prompts and practical guidance for Grades K–12.
Definition for K–3
“Engineering is using your imagination to make things that help people, animals, or our planet.”
One question to ask: What have you made, changed, or fixed to help someone?
Definition for Grades 4–6
“Engineering means finding creative ways to solve problems and make life better for people and the planet.”
One question to ask: Where do you notice a problem that could be improved?
Definition for Grades 7–9
“Engineering uses science, creativity and teamwork to solve real problems that matter.”
One question to ask: Who is affected by the problem, and how would we know a solution helps?
Definition for Grades 10–12
“Engineering uses science, creativity and critical thinking to design solutions while balancing empathy, ethics and sustainability.”
One question to ask: What trade-offs or unintended effects should an engineer consider?
Engineering is a process of learning and improving
- Ask
- Imagine
- Build
- Test
- Try again
- Share
These steps are a guide, not a fixed order. Engineers move back and forth, learn from what happens and improve their ideas.
Try asking: “What did you learn, and what might you change next time?”
A five-minute opening conversation
Ask your students: When you hear the word engineer, what comes to mind?
Record their responses without correcting them immediately. Then share the age-appropriate definition from the guide and revisit the original list.
Ask:
- What belongs on our list?
- What might be missing?
- What surprised you?
This short conversation helps reveal common misconceptions and gives students a broader, more inclusive understanding of engineering.
Explore the full guide
A resource from the Forward Engineering Collective with more grade-specific language, examples and conversation prompts.
STEP 3
Choose an EIR Anytime experience
Choose one experience or combine several. There is no required order or schedule – use the options that best fit your students, curriculum and available time.
1. Engineering Is Everywhere
Help students notice engineering in familiar objects, spaces and systems – and expand their ideas about what engineers do.
Time: 20–40 minutes
Collective action: Inspire Connection
2. Ask an Engineer Without an Engineer
Use stories, profiles and videos to introduce students to real engineering professionals, motivations, teamwork and impact.
Time: 30–60 minutes
Collective action: Showcase Engineering
3. Design to Help
Guide students through an age-appropriate engineering design process focused on a meaningful, real-world need.
Time: 45–180 minutes
Collective action: Improve Impact
4. Design for Everyone
Help students examine how design decisions can include, exclude, help or create unintended effects.
Time: 30–90 minutes
Collective action: Drive Inclusion
5. Engineering Opens Doors
Connect engineering habits, interests and skills to future possibilities—without turning the experience into a recruitment pitch.
Time: 30–75 minutes
Collective actions: Inspire Connection and Showcase Engineering
Reflection and Exit Ticket Toolkit
Help students name what they learned, how their thinking changed and what they might try next. Choose a quick prompt to use after any EIR Anytime experience.
Time: 2–10 minutes
Collective action: Improve Impact
Experience details
Experience 1 · Engineering Is Everywhere
Students identify engineering in familiar places and reconsider what engineers do and who can participate.
Prepare
Choose a setting: classroom, school, home, neighbourhood, local community, online environment, or natural space. Have chart paper, sticky notes, a shared digital board, or notebooks ready.
Choose a grade band to see the tailored adaptation
K–3
Go on an engineering noticing walk. Students draw one designed thing and finish: “This helps people by…”
Grades 4–6
Create an engineering map of the school. Identify one design that works well and one that could work better.
Grades 7–9
Trace a familiar system—drinking water, waste, transportation, food delivery, or internet access. Identify people, technologies, and trade-offs.
Grades 10–12
Conduct a short design audit of a product, process, or public space, weighing evidence, stakeholders, accessibility, sustainability, privacy, cost, and safety.
Teach
- Invite students to notice objects, systems, spaces, or routines that someone designed.
- For each example, ask: What need might it address? Who uses it? What decisions did a team make? What could be improved?
- Sort examples into broad purposes—health, communication, transportation, play, safety, food, water, energy, accessibility, or environment.
- Return to students’ original ideas about engineering. Add new words, fields, and people.
Reflect
- What example changed or expanded your idea of engineering?
- Whose knowledge and experience would improve one of these designs?
Experience 2 · Ask an Engineer Without an Engineer
Students use stories, profiles and videos to meet real engineering professionals and explore their motivations, teamwork and impact—without requiring a live classroom guest.
Prepare
Choose one engineer profile, story or short video for your class.
Preview your selected profile first. Prepare a board or chart with four headings: Need, People, Process and Impact.
Choose a grade band to see the tailored adaptation
Recommended profile sources:
- Everyday Engineer profiles from Explore Engineering
- Let’s Talk Science career profiles — use the sector filter to select engineering.
- ONWiE Professional Ambassadors
K–3
Choose a short, highly visual story. Focus on what the engineer noticed, who they wanted to help and how other people helped them. Students can draw one thing they learned and one question they would ask.
Grades 4–6
Use one engineer profile. Ask students to identify the need, the people involved, the engineer’s choices and who benefited. Finish by writing one thoughtful follow-up question.
Grades 7–9
Compare two engineering profiles. Look for different pathways, interests, skills, collaborators and impacts. Ask which details challenge common stereotypes about engineering.
Grades 10–12
Examine an engineer’s work alongside one project or problem they addressed. Consider stakeholders, evidence, trade-offs, ethics, sustainability and the pathway that led them to this work.
Teach
- Before sharing the profile, ask students what they imagine this engineer’s work and pathway might look like.
- Read or watch once for the overall story, then return to it to collect evidence.
- Identify the need, the people involved, the engineering process and the intended or unintended impact.
- Ask students: “If this engineer were here, what would you want to ask?” Record the questions and research any answers that can be found.
- Return to students’ original assumptions. Discuss what changed, what expanded and what still needs further investigation.
Reflect
- What surprised you about this engineer or their work?
- What skills mattered besides technical knowledge?
- Whose perspectives or experiences might be missing from this story?
Experience 3 · Design to Help
Students use the engineering process—Ask, Imagine, Build, Test, Try Again and Share—to respond to a meaningful need in their classroom, school, home or community.
Prepare
Choose a real need that is appropriate for your students and available time. Gather simple prototyping materials such as paper, cardboard, tape, string, reusable containers or digital design tools. Identify any time, material, size or safety constraints.
Keep the focus on the process rather than a polished final product. A simple model that helps students test and improve an idea is enough.
Choose a grade band to see the tailored adaptation
K–3
Choose a familiar need, such as organizing classroom materials, protecting something fragile or helping a person or animal. Students draw an idea, build a simple model and test one thing it should do.
Grades 4–6
Choose a classroom, school or community need. Identify who is affected, create two or three design criteria, build a prototype and use feedback to make one meaningful improvement.
Grades 7–9
Work from a real user or stakeholder need. Develop criteria and constraints, compare multiple ideas, create a prototype and collect evidence during testing to guide the next iteration.
Grades 10–12
Investigate a complex need involving multiple stakeholders. Consider accessibility, ethics, sustainability, cost and safety. Use evidence to evaluate trade-offs and justify design decisions.
Teach
- Ask: What is the need? Who is affected? How will we know whether a solution helps?
- Imagine: Generate several possible approaches before selecting one.
- Build: Create a sketch, model, prototype or simulation that can answer a question about the idea.
- Test: Observe what happens and collect feedback or evidence.
- Try again: Use what students learned to change and improve the design.
- Share: Explain the need, the design decisions, the test results and what should happen next.
Reflect
- What evidence caused you to change your design?
- Who might benefit from this solution—and who might have been overlooked?
- What would you test or improve in another iteration?
Experience 4 · Design for Everyone
Students examine how design decisions can include, exclude, help or create unintended effects—and explore how considering more perspectives can lead to better engineering.
Prepare
Choose a familiar object, space, service, system or routine to examine. Examples could include classroom furniture, playground equipment, packaging, transportation, a school entrance, a website or an everyday device.
Prepare images or access to the design, along with paper or a shared board for recording who uses it, what works well and what could create barriers.
Choose a grade band to see the tailored adaptation
K–3
Examine one familiar object or space. Ask: Who can use this easily? Who might find it difficult? Students draw one change that could help more people participate.
Grades 4–6
Audit an object, space or school routine from the perspective of people with different needs. Identify one barrier and redesign one feature to make it more welcoming or usable.
Grades 7–9
Examine a product, digital tool or public space. Consider accessibility, language, culture, cost, location and technology access. Propose a redesign and explain who would benefit.
Grades 10–12
Conduct a stakeholder and impact analysis. Identify assumptions within the original design, weigh competing needs and propose changes supported by evidence, accessibility principles or user feedback.
Teach
- Introduce the design without immediately identifying what may be wrong with it.
- Ask: Who was this likely designed for? What assumptions might the designers have made?
- Consider how the experience could change for people with different bodies, abilities, ages, cultures, resources or access to technology.
- Identify features that help people participate and features that may create barriers or unintended effects.
- Redesign one element. Ask students to explain what they changed, who it helps and whether the change creates any new trade-offs.
- Share the redesigned ideas and identify what additional perspectives or evidence would improve them.
Reflect
- Whose needs were easiest to notice? Whose were easier to overlook?
- How did considering more perspectives change the design?
- What could engineers do to include people earlier in the design process?
Experience 5 · Engineering Opens Doors
Students connect their interests, habits and skills to future possibilities involving engineering—without turning the experience into a recruitment pitch or asking them to make an early career decision.
Prepare
Prepare paper, sticky notes or a shared board with three headings: Things I care about, Things I enjoy doing and Problems I would like to help solve.
Be ready to share examples of people who contribute to engineering in different ways, including engineers, technicians, technologists, tradespeople, designers, researchers, community partners and many others.
Choose a grade band to see the tailored adaptation
K–3
Focus on interests and helpful habits rather than careers. Students complete prompts such as “I like to…,” “I am curious about…” and “I would like to help…” Draw one way those interests could connect to making something better.
Grades 4–6
Create an interest map connecting activities students enjoy—such as drawing, building, caring for animals, storytelling, gaming or exploring nature—to problems that engineering teams help address.
Grades 7–9
Connect students’ interests and strengths to real-world challenges and different roles on engineering teams. Emphasize that there are many pathways and that no single personality, identity or skill set defines who belongs.
Grades 10–12
Explore several educational and career pathways connected to engineering, including university, college, technology, skilled trades and interdisciplinary routes. Identify barriers, supports and one low-pressure next step for further exploration.
Teach
- Invite students to identify activities, topics or issues that hold their attention.
- Ask what they enjoy doing within those interests: investigating, imagining, organizing, creating, communicating, testing, repairing, helping or leading.
- Choose several real-world challenges and discuss the range of people and perspectives needed to address them.
- Connect students’ interests and habits to possible contributions—not only to job titles.
- Challenge the idea that someone must already be “good at math,” know their future career or fit a particular image to explore engineering.
- Invite each student to identify one possibility they may want to learn more about, without requiring a commitment.
Reflect
- What possibility had you not considered before?
- What interests or strengths could you bring to an engineering team?
- What people, experiences or supports could help you explore further?
Reflection and Exit Ticket Toolkit · Use with any experience
Use these prompts after any EIR Anytime experience to help students recognize what they learned, how their thinking changed and what they might try next. Responses can be spoken, drawn, written or shared with a partner.
Adapt for your grade band
K–3
Invite students to answer aloud, draw their response or complete one short sentence. Choose one prompt at a time and allow students to explain their picture or idea.
Grades 4–6
Choose one or two sentence starters. Students can respond individually, discuss with a partner or add their thinking to a class chart.
Grades 7–9
Ask students to connect evidence from the experience to a change, improvement or new question. Encourage them to explain why their thinking changed.
Grades 10–12
Invite students to reflect on evidence, stakeholders, trade-offs, assumptions and unintended effects. Ask what additional information they would need before making a recommendation.
Quick reflection for any age
Choose one or two prompts:
- The problem or need we explored was…
- The people, community, animals or environment affected were…
- One idea we tried was…
- The evidence we noticed was…
- We improved our thinking or design by…
- One thing I now understand about engineering is…
- One question I still have is…
Exit ticket options
Select the prompt that best matches the purpose of the experience.
Belonging
Engineering needs people who can ______. One way I contributed today was ______.
Impact
Our idea could help ______ by ______. A possible unintended effect is ______.
Iteration
The most useful evidence was ______, so our next change would be ______.
Career awareness
A role, field or engineering problem I want to know more about is ______ because ______.
Misconceptions
I used to think ______ about engineering. Now I think ______.
Teacher tip
You do not need to use every prompt. One thoughtful response is more useful than asking students to complete the entire list.
Need a little more support?
EIR Anytime is designed to be used independently, but you don’t have to figure everything out alone. Choose the support that is useful to you.
Be notified about live webinars
Occasional live sessions offer practical ideas, examples and time for questions. Join the notification list and we’ll let you know when the next session is available.
Watch the recorded session (coming soon)
Watch a recording from one of our live sessions.
Ask the EoT team
Need help choosing or adapting an experience? Send us a note and our team will follow up.
Help us improve EIR Anytime
Tried an experience with your students? Share a few quick reflections about what worked and what would make EIR Anytime more useful.
About these resources
EIR Anytime was developed by Engineers of Tomorrow using guidance and resources from the Forward Engineering Collective and its member organizations. Explore the full How to Talk to Kids About Engineering guide for additional grade-specific language, examples and conversation prompts.
Language availability: EIR Anytime and the linked Forward Engineering Collective guide are currently available in English only. French-language versions are not yet available.