The following blog post was written by Lauren Hathaway, an Eye On Education editorial staff member.

February 11 is National Inventors’ Day, and what better day to celebrate than on the birthday of prolific American inventor Thomas Edison? Born in Ohio in 1847, Edison received 1093 patents in the United States and 2332 worldwide during his lifetime.

While most grade school students will at some point learn about Edison and his famous inventions like the phonograph or the incandescent light bulb, how many have heard of Stanley Mason, who invented the squeezable ketchup bottle, granola bars, and dental floss dispensers? What about Alfred Butts, the inventor of Scrabble, or Post-it Note inventor Frank Epperson?

From those who changed the world to those who added a little something sweet to life (here’s to you and your chocolate chip cookies, Ruth Wakefield!), the United States is home to many great inventors. In honor of this holiday and the men and women it celebrates, here are three ideas and to get students excited about inventions. These ideas are not limited to science class; they can be done across the curriculum and in different grade levels. 

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) highlights an important inventor every week in its Inventor of the Week Archive. The archive is easy to navigate, either by searching for an inventor by name or by browsing a list of inventions in one of several categories, including Consumer Goods, Transportation, and Medicine and Healthcare. Here, students might discover how Levi Strauss came to patent the Blue Jeans or why Douglas Carl Engelbart, who invented the computer mouse, was initially dismissed by many because his ideas were too “futuristic.”
• Students might be excited to learn that kids their own age are hard at work on noteworthy inventions. This article from Popular Science highlights ten students who are working on inventions such as a Smartphone water-quality tester and a tin-based cancer treatment. Every year, the National Gallery for America’s Young Inventors inducts six K-12 students every year. Read about 2011 inductees here.
• Host an Invention Convention in your classroom. In this lesson plan from Alabama Learning Exchange, students research an invention (and its inventor) and share their findings with the class. Then, they become inventors themselves, developing inventions and presenting their ideas at their class “Invention Convention.”

What kind of lessons have you created to teach students about famous inventors? Share your ideas below.