In January 2003, a team of university researchers received National Science Foundation funding to create the web-based TeachEngineering.org digital library collection - populated with searchable, standards-based K-12 curricula for use by science teachers and engineering faculty to teach engineering in K-12 settings.

The idea was to build upon the extensive K-12 engineering curriculum already developed by four universities with National Science Foundation's GK-12 program funding, and merge the curricula from these individual sites into a unified and useful collection of free and accessible resources.

Engineering faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, and K-12 teachers were key participants in this endeavor. Each institution had local school district partners engaged to promote engineering as a vehicle for math and science integration as they developed and classroom tested the curricular materials. The resulting lessons and activities relate to everyday encounters in the lives of youngsters, thus providing an engineering context for student learning.

Faculty and students in the College of Business at Oregon State University designed and developed the system architecture and search engine. The architecture, document collection and metadata formulation are based on established NSDL digital library protocols.

Concurrently, the partners standardized the initial curricular contents, converting a variety of K-12 engineering curricula into searchable, standards-based documents with a common look and feel. Activities take an "engineering on a shoestring" approach, using low-cost, readily available materials. Collections curricula meet explicit quality criteria and are aligned with state or national science, mathematics and technology educational standards.

The team populated the collection with classroom-tested contents over several years. The units, lessons and activities introduce engineering to K-12 students, serving as integrators of science and mathematics concepts. The collection also provides a portal to several "living labs" - providing curricula for classroom use of online real-world data on wind, water and transportation. Every year, the project team reaches out to end-users by conducting teacher and faculty workshops on how to use the collection to teach engineering to youngsters. The American Society for Engineering Education is a valuable partner, leading the nationwide dissemination and promotion of the collection.

In November 2005, the team received additional National Science Foundation funding to expand TeachEngineering capabilities to become the K-12 component of NADL's Engineering Pathway. The team continues to enhance the user features of TeachEngineering to provide seamless search capability with the science, math, technology and engineering educational standards of all 50 states [pending]. All the original partners continue to grow and evolve the project by working with other content sources to expand the collection's curricular contents.