Purdue University TRAILS

TRAILS 2.0 offers a place-based learning context that enables students to explore their local environment and connect with STEM professionals from their region.

TRAILS Lesson Plans

Students will describe and illustrate the feeding relationships of aquatic food webs. They will communicate environmental issues of plastic pollution in marine habitats in a mass media format. They will predict buoyancy of an object using mathematics and predictive analysis.

Animal Architects

This unit takes biological phenomena such as transpiration of plants, laws of thermodynamics, animal behavior and regulation of body temperature, to create innovative, eco-friendly housing and landscape designs. This unit specifically focuses on the need for sustainable development by implementing

Riparian Zone Replacement Design

The students will explore the causes and effects of erosion and how a healthy riparian zone can work. They will test water health based on the aquatic insects they find and compare their water health findings to how the waterway

Flight of the Bumblebee

This is an integrated lesson to be used in Physical Science and Computer Integrated Manufacturing Class. The focus is on how to produce lift with flapping wings, investigating butterflies, ornithopters and finishing in the creation of a 3-d printed wing

Engineering Design

Biomimicry

Scientific Inquiry

3D Printing

Place-based STEM Education

TRAILS 2.0 offers a place-based learning context that enables students to explore their local environment and connect with STEM professionals from their region.

TRAILS Lesson Plans

Fishing Lure Design Contest

Communication

Campus

Information

Other