Inventors and Inventions

A colleague asked me for some good sites about inventors and inventions. As I gathered the resources I realized that this topic could be used effectively to help teach science, history, writing, mathematics, and language arts. Students can invent musical instruments, conduct experiments or demonstrations that illustrate inventions, produce plays about inventions and their effects on society, write biographies of inventors, create and trade inventor trading cards, create videos to tell the stories of inventors and their inventions, conduct oral interviews of living inventors, produce podcasts of those interviews, or write stories about how an invention could change the future. The following list of resources (with comments) could help with those projects.

Encyclopedia Smithsonian: Engineering, Industry, and Invention http://www.si.edu/Encyclopedia_SI/science_and_technology/EngineeringandIndustry_Technology.htm interviews with leaders and inventors: Bill Gates, computer history, Don Wetzel (ATMs), Marc Andreesen (Netscape); Latin American inventors; invention at play; sewing machines; more…

Famous Inventions: A to Z http://inventors.about.com/od/astartinventions/a/FamousInvention.htm
extensive list, annoying ads

Famous Inventors: Nationality or A-Z http://inventors.about.com/od/famousinventors/Famous_Inventors_Nationality_or_A_Z.htm includes biographies and timelines

Inventor Biography
http://www.ideafinder.com/history/of_inventors.htm
“showcase for innovation… mission is to provide inspiration to the ‘inventor’ in all of us”
inventor biographies, photographs, quotations, and additional resources

Inventors Digest: The Magazine for Idea People http://www.inventorsdigest.com/
what’s going on in inventions nowadays
designed to “educate and inspire independent and professional innovators”\
23rd year for the magazine

Inventors/Inventions
http://edtech.kennesaw.edu/web/inventor.html
links to information about inventions and inventors, lesson plans, activities
put together by an educator for other educators
some links don’t work

National Inventors Hall of Fame
http://www.invent.org/
can find information sorted by inventor or invention or decade

Technology & Inventions
http://www.kidcyber.com.au/topics/inventor.htm
an Australian links page to information about inventions and inventors

The Black Inventor Online Museum
http://www.blackinventor.com/
“The Black Inventor Online Museum™, is a look at the great and often unrecognized pioneers in the field of invention and innovation.”
very short biographies, timeline

The Invention Dimension
http://web.mit.edu/afs/athena.mit.edu/org/i/invent/
useful and interesting information

• inventor archive: accessible by inventor’s name or invention, inventions in the categories of medicine and healthcare, consumer products, transportation, energy and environment, and computing and telecommunications
• inventor’s handbook: helpful information on patents and commercializing patents
• games and trivia section: brain drain, invention connection, and which came first?
• links and resources: interesting sites

The New Inventors
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/newinventors/
“They say Australia has more inventors, innovators and designers per head of population than anywhere else in the world. So join The New Inventors in a fascinating search for Australia's most amazing inventions and trend-setting designs.”
television show

Zoom Inventors and Inventions
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/inventors/
inventors and inventions listed by date or topic, paragraph of explanation for each item

Photo: http://flickr.com/photos/dcjohn/8163121/
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en