K-12 Classroom Resources

A photograph of a group of children talking and sitting and talking in a table group of four in a classroom. On the desk in front of them are basic construction materials such as paper, cardboard, and straws. In the background are other table groups.

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K-12 Classroom Resources

Design has the power to change the world. Explore lesson plans and activities to help you empower your students to view the world with optimism and apply design literacy in their daily lives. Also visit Professional Development Resources for strategies and approaches on how to integrate design in your classroom. For information on Design Field Trips, visit School Programs.

 

Design Spotlight: Earth Month

Explore self-guided field trips and activities that prompt students to explore nature in their communities, ecosystems and animals in other parts of the world.

Design A Bug Home

Colorful illustration of an insect hotel. The structure is divided into chambers filled with natural materials and paper tubes, providing various nesting sites for the beetle, the spider and the bee that populate the scene.
Grades: 2-4
Flex your building skills by designing a home for nature's tiniest architects - bugs!

Habitat Maps

A photograph of a light-skinned hand holding a black and white sketch of a habitat map of their neighborhood. The map is a bird’s eye view of their neighborhood and filled with small simple sketches of various animal and plant species.
Grades: 5-7
Design a habitat map that highlights the different species in your neighborhood.

Design a Self-Expression Poster Inspired by Edgardo Giménez

Grades: 8-12
Discover cochineal, a small parasitic insect that feeds on the prickly pear cactus, that was for centuries the most coveted red pigment in the world and still used today by contemporary designers.

Design Strategies

Learn and practice design skills and strategies by collaborating with your peers, flexing your creative muscles, exploring your community, and getting your hands dirty with prototyping challenges.

Design Skills

Colorful checkered graphic of various orange, purple, blue, and red boxes containing design skill definitions. Surrounded by various hand drawn illustrations.
Grades: 5-12
A simple one-page reference sheet of design terms and strategies.

Design a Streetscape

A green activity card depicts an active sidewalk shared by children skateboarding and dog walking with a bicyclist and an elder adult.
Grades: 1-4, Subjects: Geography, Civics, Engineering
Explore your local environment and prototype a streetscape for your community to enjoy!

Design a Self-Expression Poster Inspired by Edgardo Giménez

A composite image of a person's back who has butterfly wings and five overlapping blue arches topped by blue sparkly stars
Grades: 9-12, Subjects: History, Graphic Design
Explore how Argentine designer Edgardo Giménez used graphic design techniques to express his identity and challenge social norms. Then flex your iteration skills by using a photomontage technique to design your own self-expressive poster.

Design Storytelling: Objects & Environments

A colorful hand-drawn illustration of random different objects on a cream background. All the objects consist of the same color pallet of light pink, red, green, and brown. The objects range from a rocking chair, sweater, origami crane, lamp, bracelet, glasses, and photograph.
Grades: 6-7, Subjects: English Language Arts, History, Media Arts
Practice writing and visualizing stories about a personal object or family heirloom.

Observational Collage Map

A blue hand-drawn cartoon-like map from a birds eye view. The map is of different streets and landmarks such as a fountain, subway entrance, to store or building entrance.
Grades: 9-12, Subjects: Geography, Science
In this activity you will work on design skills such as observing, building curiosity, collaborating, and analyzing through exploring the architectural and geographic features in your community and collect visual clues that will help you create a collage map.

Design it Yourself: Design A Prototype for a user

A photograph of various recycled materials such as egg carton, plastic fruit carton, straws, toilet paper roll, and red netting.
Grades: 2-5
Learn to think like a designer by prototyping a solution engineered for a specific user.

Design it Yourself: Practice Design Observation

A photograph of a white notebook on a wooden table. The notebook is open to two pages that are filled of various plants that have been taped down to the pages.
Grades: 2-5
Follow along to practice observation, used in design, art, and science.

Related to recent exhibitions

Check out resources related to recent exhibitions, including Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial,  An Atlas of Es Devlin, and Give Me A Sign: The Language of Symbols. Visit often to find out what’s new.

Video: Comidad, Conversación Y Comunidad

A photograph of a large group of teenagers and adults cooking together around a large and long table filled with many cooking tools and ingredients. In the background is a painted mural on the wall showing people harvesting food from trees and fields.
Grades: 6-12
Learn how the East Jordan, Middle/High School students engaged with community members through culinary and linguistic exchanges.

Youth Designing for Communities

A close up of a yellow, pink, and red graphic with photographs and text.
Grades: 6-12
Explore how students from East Jordan Middle/High School in Michigan used the design process to collaborate with Spanish-speaking families and strengthened community connections.

An Atlas of Es Devlin: A Creative Curriculum

A black and white line sketch illustration of three hands drawing in different directions.
Grades: 7-12, Subjects: ELA, Art
Inspired by the ways Devlin sustains and adapts her artistic process, this 8-part curriculum is designed to foster creative thinking.

The Language of Symbols: Video Series

A graphic of 5 bright colored street symbols against a grey background, such as a red hexagon shaped stop sign, to a circular green go sign.
Grades: 1-5
These videos explore symbols as vital communication tools in our daily lives, constantly evolving to meet new needs and users.

Explore more on Smithsonian learning lab

Discover more activities to try in your classroom on the Smithsonian Learning Lab. This digital platform inspires creativity and exploration with enriching materials. Access over 2 million images, recordings, and texts from the Smithsonian’s 19 museums, 9 major research centers, the National Zoo, and more.

Designing for Identity and Inclusion in Your Community

A close up photograph of a black hat with red, green, and black circular patch, that has a symbol in the middle of two black hands holding each other. Surrounding the hands in red capital letters reads, “Black- Pride-Culture”.
Grades: 2-6
Explore icons, symbols, and logos to create a design of your own to represent a community you belong to.

Design a Zine: Family Cornerstones

A close up of a black and purple zine cover that reads, “Yell” in bold lowercase purple letters.
Grades: 6-8
Inspired by the way zines have amplified diverse voices, this activity explores how to craft a zine in celebration of our communities and identities.

Cas Holman: Good Toys Make Good People

A photograph of two young light skinned children playing with a wooden structure.
Grades: 6-8
Explore how Cas Holman designs tools for imagination and empowers children through play.

Faith Ringgold: Posters & Protest

A close up of a poster designed by Faith Ringgold, called Woman Free Yourself. Vertical poster divided into 8 alternating triangles of purple and green triangles. The words, woman, free, your, and self are written in bold capitalized letters where each word takes up the space of a triangle and are all rotated in different directions. The color of the text is opposite to whatever background its on- purple text on a green background and vice versa.
Grades: 9-12, Subjects: History, Civil Rights Movement
Analyze political posters designed by artist, author, and activist Faith Ringgold, and design your own protest poster about a civil rights issue today.