STEM Lesson Plans

Best for: Structural engineering, architectural, and construction management classes

Benefit of Lesson Plan: Helps students improve writing skills and relate concepts they are learning to the “real world”.

Summary: Students identify and research a structural steel project that has been profiled in Modern Steel Construction and publish their work on RePicture.com

What RePicture Offers:
• Unlike a typical assignment, students’ work may be published and shared with others worldwide on RePicture.com. This may motivate students to provide higher quality work.
• Free access to a teacher “dashboard” where you can see the students’ work while it is in progress. Email Edu@RePicture.com to set-up a dashboard for your class.
• If students are completing assignment during a RePicture Resume-Builder session, students can submit their work for review by steel professionals to win a prize. See here for more information.

Feedback: “Students who were less familiar with structural steel projects have told us that the RePicture program has sparked a deep interest and opened their eyes to new design and career possibilities. RePicture’s Resume-Builder program offers students a unique opportunity to gain valuable experience researching structural steel buildings and bridges. Not only can students gain a deeper understanding of technical topics, but they can also develop marketable writing skills that will serve them well whether they go into research, consulting, or practice."real."" – Christina Harber, SE, PE, AISC Director of Education

Best for: Students in Geotechnical Engineering class

Benefit of Lesson Plan: Helps students relate their classwork to actual geotechnical engineering projects, improves students’ writing skills, and provides an opportunity to build their resume.

Summary: Students research projects done by geotechnical engineers. They then identify, research, write-up, and publish on RePicture.com a geotechnical engineering project. Students can use this assignment to build a supplement to their resume for when apply to jobs or internships.

What RePicture Offers:
• Unlike a typical assignment, students’ work may be published and shared with others worldwide on RePicture.com. This may motivate students to provide higher quality work.
• Free access to a teacher “dashboard” where you can see the students’ work while it is in progress. Email Edu@RePicture.com to set-up a dashboard for your class.
• If students are completing assignment during a RePicture Resume-Builder session, students can submit their work for review by steel professionals to win a prize. See RePicture.com/students for more information.

Best for: College or high school engineering or physical science classes

Benefit of Lesson Plan: Helps students relate engineering concepts that they are learning to the “real world.”

Summary: Students take, or find, pictures of the engineering concepts they are learning in class and enter the pictures and basic information into RePicture.com.

What RePicture Offers:
• Unlike a typical assignment, students’ work may be published and shared with others worldwide on RePicture.com. This may motivate students to provide higher quality work.
• Students can use RePicture.com to search for previously entered engineering elements (if it was used in a previous class). This may introduce students to different examples of engineering elements and increase their understanding.
• Requiring students to search for and geocode the engineering elements may help them better relate the assignment to actual engineering projects.

Feedback: “RePicture made the assignment much more exciting, and caused the students to go deeper and think harder. I think it was because of the high-quality examples that they viewed on RePicture, and also the Geo-tagging. The latter effect surprised me, but I think this tagging made the assignment more "real."" – Dr. Evan Variano, University of California, Berkeley

Best for: College or high school STEM classes

Benefit of Lesson Plan: Helps students learn about STEM projects that excite them, while improving their research and communication skills. Thanks to AGU for supporting the piloting of this lesson plan.


Summary: Students choose a topic of interest to them, research & create a presentation about it, and enter it into RePicture.com. High quality work will be published (with the student’s name) for the world to see!

What RePicture Offers:
• Unlike a typical assignment, students’ work may be published and shared with others worldwide on RePicture.com. If the project write-up meets quality requirements, the work will be published and the student shown as the “page owner”, which may motivate students to create higher quality work.
• Challenges students with a real-life problem that is common for STEM professionals - writing for a real audience. Plus, there is no limits to the work an exceptional student can do. The assignment can be completed by students of any ability.
• We provide a clear rubric for reviewing the assignment. You don’t have to be an expert in the area the student is studying in order to review their work. The RePicture dashboard also allows you to easily access all students’ work and comment on it online, where only the student can see your comment.

Feedback: “This experience has been one of the best for my students. There is no other experience I could give them, in the classroom, where a grade could become meaningless if their work is not accepted for upload to the RePicture App”– Jason Ebner, Antioch High School, California

Best for: College or high school introduction to engineering classes

Benefit of Lesson Plan: Helps students discover different types of engineering careers and engineering projects that excite them.

Summary: Students research their chosen major using RePicture.com and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics website. Using RePicture they find an engineer and/or engineering project that resonates with them.

What RePicture Offers:
• Profiles of engineers that match the demographics (e.g., gender, race) of the U.S. students, so students can find an engineer that “looks” like them.
• Ability to search for engineers and projects based on key words, such as “energy” for students interested in clean energy.
• Chance for student to learn about the type of engineer or scientist that works on different types of projects and how these projects benefit society and/or the environment.

Feedback: “In many cases, the students have found something valuable on RePicture.com. It certainly added to the experience… RePicture.com is a truly valuable portal into the world of engineering for students who are studying AND graduating.”– Charles Riley, Oregon Institute of Technology

Best for: All-girls high school STEM class or club

Benefit of Lesson Plan: Helps girls understand the benefits of diversity in engineering and change their perceptions of who are engineers.

Summary: Students learn about the benefits of engineering and the benefits of having diversity in design. They then use the engineering design process to brainstorm ways to increase diversity in engineering and discuss using RePicture to change perceptions about engineering.

What RePicture Offers:
• Students learn about the engineering design process and then use the process to solve a real-life “people-centric” problem. Unlike a typical assignment, their solutions may actually be implemented (by RePicture).
• Provides an interactive engineering lesson plan without the need to build a physical object.
• Students learn about engineering through engineers that “look” like them, which increases their sense of belonging in engineering.

Feedback: “I never knew very much about any type of engineer before using RePicture.com but now that I have, it is something that I want to get more involved in and learn about” and ‘I would like read about more women engineers on RePicture because if I were to go into an engineering career I would want to make an educated and well informed decision and this would help me” – two students from all-girls high school in Maryland

Best for: College introduction to engineering classes or high school after-school STEM clubs

Benefit of Lesson Plan: Helps all students understand the breadth of work different types of engineers and scientist do. Also provides girls and other underrepresented groups role models so they see that they “belong” in STEM.

Summary: The teacher, or student, provides a short summary about one engineer or scientist found on RePicture.com at the beginning of each class or club meeting.

What RePicture Offers:
• Profiles of engineers that match the demographics (e.g., gender, race) of the U.S. student population, so students can find an engineer that “looks” like them.
• Ability to search for engineers based on key words, such as “chemical” for students interested in chemical engineering.
• Chance for students to learn about the work STEM professionals, such as the projects they work on, what their typical day is like, and what skills have been most important to their career.

Feedback: “We found the profiles with videos the most engaging” – Patricia Neary, AP Physics Teacher and SWENext Club Leader, Long Reach High School, Columbia, Maryland