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

Clean Sweep

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.

Ticket to Fly

Students will study the physics behind different types of flight and using biomimicry design a simple flying machine.

Nature’s Origami

Lesson focuses on teams of students using nature-derived inspiration to design a functioning solar panel that can charge a cell phone. Students study the need for renewable energy production and use knowledge of folding patterns in nature to create their

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

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