Technology is often taught through the lens of how things work. History, meanwhile, asks why developments occurred, who shaped them, and how they changed society. IEEE REACH brings these perspectives together, helping educators introduce students not only to important technologies, but also to the people, challenges, decisions, and societal changes behind them.
IEEE REACH—Raising Engineering Awareness through the Conduit of History—is a free educational program designed to help pre-university educators integrate the history of technology and engineering into the classroom. Developed through the IEEE History Center, REACH provides open educational resources that place science, technology, and engineering within their broader social and humanistic contexts.
While originally designed with Social Studies educators in mind, the program is intentionally interdisciplinary. REACH resources align with the C3 Framework for Social Studies and also support the Next Generation Science Standards and the Standards for Technology and Engineering Literacy established by the International Technology and Engineering Educators Association (ITEEA). This makes the resources valuable not only for history classrooms, but also for STEM and technology educators looking for new ways to connect technical concepts with the world students experience around them.
Helping Teachers Connect STEM, History, and Society
One of REACH’s greatest strengths is that it addresses a practical challenge facing educators: developing engaging, interdisciplinary lessons takes time.
Rather than asking teachers to assemble historical documents, technical background, classroom activities, and standards-aligned questions independently, REACH brings these components together in ready-to-use educational resources. Its Inquiry Units incorporate compelling questions, primary and secondary sources, multimedia materials, hands-on activities, teacher background information, and formative and summative learning opportunities.
Developed through collaboration between historians of technology and experienced educators, the resources encourage students to investigate technology rather than simply memorize facts about it. REACH describes its units as following the Inquiry Design Model, encouraging students to ask questions, evaluate evidence, communicate conclusions, and connect what they learn to larger societal issues.
For teachers, this provides another way to introduce engineering concepts to students who might not initially see themselves as interested in engineering. A lesson about electricity, communications, transportation, or information can become a conversation about economics, culture, equity, invention, infrastructure, or everyday life.
That context matters for technological literacy. Understanding technology means more than knowing how a device functions; it also means understanding why technologies are created, what problems they solve, how they spread, who gains access to them, and how they can reshape society.
REACH currently organizes resources across nine broad themes: agriculture, manufacturing, materials and structures, energy, communication, transportation, information processing, medicine and healthcare, and warfare. Educators can further explore materials through historical eras and other curricular themes.
Exploring Light and the History of Illumination
For educators interested in optics and photonics, one of the strongest connections within REACH is its Electric Lighting Inquiry Unit.
Built around the compelling question, “How would your life be different without electric lighting?”, the unit examines the invention, commercialization, and adoption of electric lighting during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Rather than presenting the light bulb as an isolated invention, students investigate what came before electric lighting, the innovations that contributed to incandescent light, the challenges involved in delivering electricity at scale, and the ways artificial lighting ultimately transformed society.
The topic offers an accessible entry point for introducing students to the broader importance of light-based technologies. Students already understand light intuitively because they experience it every day. Beginning with illumination can therefore create opportunities for teachers to move from familiar technologies toward conversations about the science of light and, ultimately, modern applications in optics and photonics.
REACH complements the unit with historical primary sources and multimedia resources. Its collection includes Light Through the Ages, historical material from Westinghouse examining the progression of lighting technologies, as well as resources exploring Thomas Edison and the development of electric lighting.
Importantly, the unit also introduces students to Lewis Howard Latimer, whose contributions are sometimes overlooked in traditional accounts of electrical history. REACH’s materials explore Latimer’s career, including his work associated with early electric lighting systems and his eventual role with Edison’s company. His story gives educators another opportunity to discuss the people behind technological progress and demonstrate that innovation rarely results from the work of a single individual.
REACH also offers a classroom activity connected with the Electric Lighting unit in which students construct a simple light source using batteries and pencil lead. The activity is designed to encourage students to think beyond whether they can make something illuminate and consider the practical questions engineers faced: How long will it operate? Is it safe? Is it economical? Could it realistically be used in people’s homes?
Those questions help shift a classroom experiment into an engineering lesson about designing technology for society.
Bringing the Human Side of Engineering Into STEM Education
REACH’s approach is particularly valuable because it helps students understand engineering as a human endeavor. Every technology exists within a story: someone recognized a problem, experimented with a solution, encountered limitations, improved a design, and introduced an innovation into a society that may—or may not—have been ready to adopt it.
Teaching these stories can make engineering more approachable. Instead of encountering science and engineering only through equations or finished technologies, students encounter experimentation, collaboration, failure, creativity, competition, social need, and problem solving.
REACH notes that its materials are developed through professional historical research and adapted for students by experienced educators. Its inquiry-based approach is intended to strengthen critical thinking, problem solving, persuasive writing, evidence evaluation, and basic design thinking alongside technological understanding.
This interdisciplinary model can be especially useful for educators seeking to reach students with different interests. A student fascinated by history, culture, communications, social change, or economics may discover an unexpected connection to engineering—and potentially begin to see a place for themselves within STEM.
Teachers Can Get Involved
REACH is not simply a collection of static classroom materials. Educators are also invited to help shape the program.
Teachers can pilot existing Inquiry Units in their classrooms and provide feedback to the REACH team about how the materials worked with their students. Educators can also express interest in collaborating directly with an IEEE historian to develop a new Inquiry Unit. In that model, historical expertise is paired with classroom experience to transform a technology topic into an engaging educational experience for students.
That collaborative model presents an interesting opportunity for technical communities across IEEE as well. Fields such as photonics contain rich stories that connect scientific discovery with communications, healthcare, manufacturing, energy, defense, computing, and everyday life. Bringing more of those stories into pre-university education can help students understand not only what photonics is, but why light-based technologies matter.
Explore IEEE REACH
All IEEE REACH educational resources are available free to teachers and students. Educators can explore Inquiry Units, primary sources, multimedia resources, hands-on activities, and teacher background materials through the program’s online collection.
For educators interested specifically in light and illumination:
Explore the Electric Lighting Inquiry Unit
Educators interested in testing REACH resources or contributing their classroom expertise can also explore the program’s pilot opportunities.
Learn About IEEE REACH Pilot Programs
By connecting technological innovation with the people and societies that shaped it, IEEE REACH gives educators another way to make engineering relevant. For photonics, it also offers a compelling starting point: helping students understand how humanity’s relationship with light evolved—and inviting them to imagine what we might do with light next.
