Review the Academic Content Standards related to this lesson. Assess the qualities they feel successful inventors must possess and the qualities they feel all successful inventions have in common. Create a patent for their invention that includes an abstract that describes the purpose, use and design of the invention and a labeled, accurate illustration of their invention. Then, list the qualities that you think a successful inventor possesses in the left column, and list the qualities that make an invention successful in the right column.
Students then share their answers.
Create the two columns on the board, and jot down students' responses. Then, explain to students that they will be referring back to these qualities of successful inventors and inventions in this lesson as they become inventors themselves, creating something that would be useful to them and then drafting a patent for their creation. Students should write down all of the ideas that come to mind, even the silly ones. Then, divide students into small groups of three or four students each, and have students share their ideas with their group members. Each group then selects one invention that they would want to develop.