How Invention Education Helps Your Students Create Real Change

This 2023 Share My Lesson Virtual Conference session will introduce teachers to the role of invention in American history and "invention education," a project-based learning approach that brings out students' natural inventive side. Students learn to identify problems in their communities through news stories and interviews with neighbors and family members. They brainstorm, design, test and share their inventions with classmates and potential stakeholders (i.e. a device to shield senior citizens living in "heat deserts" from the sun or a new device that sorts through recyclables at school). A key element of invention education includes examining past inventions by women inventors and inventors of color that historians and the news media have overlooked as well as examples of medical racism, like Henrietta Lacks and the Tuskegee Experiment. Invention education crosses all disciplines, helps build empathy in students and provides a path to civic action. Invention is often synonymous with the American Dream (think Thomas Edison and Henry Ford). Invention education ensures ALL students have the opportunities to invent, be successful and make the world a better place.