Middle School STEM Curriculum
PLTW Gateway (6-8) opens paths that create meaningful futures. It connects students to careers in areas they can, and can't, imagine.
Career Awareness Starting in Middle School
Through explorations of coding and robotics, flight and space, human body systems, and more, PLTW Gateway fuels students’ passion for discovery. As they engage in hands-on, collaborative problem solving focused on real-world challenges, students use and stretch their imaginations in brand-new ways and connect their learning to life. All the while, students step into roles spanning the career landscape – a crucial experience during this transitional time in their lives.
To ensure that more middle school students have equal access and opportunities to engage and be empowered through the PLTW experience, we offer all PLTW Gateway units and teacher resources in both English and Spanish.
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Students discover the design process and develop an understanding of the influence of creativity and innovation in their lives. They are then challenged and empowered to use and apply what they’ve learned throughout the unit to design a therapeutic toy for a child who has cerebral palsy.
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Students are given the opportunity to combine mechanisms with input and output devices to automate the mechanisms. Construction and programming skills are layered, and projects and the problem provide students the opportunity to connect their learning throughout the lessons in the unit. Students take on the role of interns, and work in teams to identify design requirements and create prototypes to meet the needs of clients. They also explore different aspects of automation and robotics, and experience how solving real-life problems involves the teamwork of mechanical engineers, software developers, and electrical engineers.
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This unit will expose students to computer science by computationally analyzing and developing solutions to authentic problems through mobile app development, and will convey the positive impact of the application of computer science to other disciplines and to society.
Students will customize their experience by choosing a problem that interests them from the areas of health, environment, emergency preparedness, education, community service, and school culture. Because problems in the real world involve more than one discipline, the unit will introduce students to biomedical science concepts as they work on solutions for the specific problems they choose to tackle.
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This unit will allow students to discover computer science concepts and skills by creating personally relevant, tangible, and shareable projects. Throughout the unit, students will learn about programming for the physical world by blending hardware design and software development. They will design and develop a physical computing device, interactive art installation, or wearable, and plan and develop code for microcontrollers that bring their physical designs to life.
Physical computing projects will promote student awareness of interactive systems, including Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and broaden their understanding of abstract computer science concepts through meaningful and authentic applications.
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Students are challenged to think big and toward the future as they explore sustainable solutions to our energy needs and investigate the impact of energy on our lives and the world. They design and model alternative energy sources and evaluate options for reducing energy consumption.
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The exciting world of aerospace comes alive through the Flight and Space (FS) unit. Students become engineers as they design, prototype, and test models to learn about the science of flight and what it takes to travel and live in space. They solve real-world aviation and space challenges and plan a mission to Mars.
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Science impacts the technology of yesterday, today, and the future. Students apply the concepts of physics, chemistry, and nanotechnology to STEM activities and projects, including making ice cream, cleaning up an oil spill, and discovering the properties of nano-materials.
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Through hands-on projects, students explore electricity, the behavior and parts of atoms, and sensing devices. They learn knowledge and skills in basic circuitry design, and examine the impact of electricity on the world around them.
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Today’s students have grown up in an age of “green” choices. In this unit, students learn how to apply this concept to the fields of architecture and construction by exploring dimensioning, measuring, and architectural sustainability as they design affordable housing units using Autodesk’s® 3D architectural design software.
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Students play the role of real-life medical detectives as they collect and analyze medical data to diagnose disease. They solve medical mysteries through hands-on projects and labs, measure and interpret vital signs, examine nervous system structure and function, and investigate disease outbreaks.
Start Transforming Your Classrooms
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Explore Our Curriculum
See how our pathways in computer science, engineering, and biomedical science make for a comprehensive PreK-12 learning experience.
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Discover the Difference
See how thousands of PLTW students and alumni across the country are unlocking their potential and thriving in college, career, and beyond.