14 Shark Tank Lesson Plans for Middle School (and High School!)

Use these free shark tank lesson plans for middle school & high school, Shark tank worksheet pdf, and Shark Tank project ideas to teach your students.

Okay, okay – so you’ve seen the hit show, Shark Tank, and you want to know how you can incorporate some of this coolness into your classroom?

I’ve got you covered with some free shark tank lesson plans for middle school AND for high school.

These shark tank assignment ideas and shark tank activities are a great way to get your students actually wanting to do their schoolwork.

They’ll work together in teams for most, and because these are such cool assignments, they’ll likely get closer.

And did I mention you might be amazed at the ideas they come up with?

Depending on which activities you choose, your students can learn the following:

• How to invent something to solve a problem
• How to present something to a class or group
• How to come up with a marketing plan
• How to calculate production costs and profits
• How to think through distribution of a product

Let’s (shark)dive into these lesson plans, worksheets, and projects!

Hint: many of these free shark tank lesson plans come from Teachers Pay Teachers, and you’ll need to set up a free account in order to access them.

1. Shark Tank: Lessons in Business and Entrepreneurship

Grade Level: 6^th – 12^th

Scholastic has fantastic Shark Tank activity worksheets – it’s a whole lesson plan, and includes a teacher’s guide. All for free!

Core entrepreneur lessons are:

• Teaching Entrepreneurship
• Building a Business Plan
• Writing Persuasive Pitches
• Finding Mentors

2. Shark Tank Marketing Review

Grade Level: 6^th – 12^th

This worksheet will have your students thinking about all kinds of things when watching a Shark Tank episode (great shark tank questions for students!).

Like:

• Demographics AND psychographics of who might buy
• Whether the pitch is a product/service, and whether it is a want or a need
• What marketing tactics they’re going to use to help persuade people to buy it

3. Christmas Shark Tank Activity

Grade Level: 6^th

Super-cute, Christmas-themed, Shark Tank activity: your students are tasked with creating a new toy that they’ll have to pitch to Santa’s workshop for the chance that it becomes a new toy in his catalogue!

Students will also need to present their ideas, and a rubric is included.

Psst: not ready for a full-on shark tank competition? Try holding a market day in your class. Here are 22 things for kids to make and sell, and help pricing their products in this market day lesson plan. Here's 3 kid business examples.

4. Shark Tank Analysis Worksheet

Grade Level: 6^th – 12^th

This is a very simple worksheet you can print out and use with any Shark Tank episode you’re showing students.

I like how the questions ask students to critique the pitches, such as whether or not you agree with the shark’s responses, and what could be improved about the person’s pitch.

5. Aztec Shark Tank: Jaguar Tank!

Grade Level: 7^th grade

Take your students back to the time of the Aztecs, and have them work on solving a problem in Aztec society by creating an invention and then pitching it to the other students (just like on Shark Tank!).

The bottom line on this activity is answering these questions:

• Which inventions did we find most effective?
• What problems did we learn about in Aztec society?

6. Shark Tank Business Plan Activity

Grade Level: middle school

This shark tank lesson plan PDF walks you through a simple way to use Shark Tank in your classroom – to help your kids create their own business plan by modeling for them what one looks like – and then gives you the worksheets they’ll need to do it.

Students are also prompted to:

• Write an advertisement for their product/service
• Write their presentation down, created from the answers they give for specific questions
• Present their idea to the classroom

Hint: the links don’t work within this PDF, but you don’t need her specific episode choices to do this.

7. Shark Tank Junior Lesson Plan

Grade Level: 8^th grade

Does your classroom use a good bit of technology/software (like YouTube, Canva, Google Sites, etc.)? You can check out this teacher’s simple lesson plan that leads students through creating a pitch and website for a new product or service idea.

Psst: here are more fun money activities for middle school students.

8. History Shark Tank Project

Grade Level: middle school

Here's a fun shark tank idea for school: this teacher uses Shark Tank to teach different technologies and technological advances during various time periods. Really brings a history project alive!

9. Dolphin Tank Rubric

Grade Level: 4^th-12^th

Can I just say that I find the title of this shark tank activity, “Dolphin Tank” absolutely adorable?

Okay…moving on.

The idea is to have students pitch real ideas to a panel of teachers and judges. The winning idea will be chosen, and you can encourage them to pursue the idea in real life (the creator suggests by opening up a crowd funding campaign).

FYI: this is just a rubric to help the judges when deciding on who should win.

10. Shark Tank Summary Sheet

Grade Level: 9^th – 12^th

Here’s a very simple and straightforward worksheet you can give your students to fill out while watching an episode of Shark Tank. They’ll be asked whether or not they want to invest, to summarize discussion points, and so on.

11. Shark Tank Marketing Mix Activity

Grade Level: 9^th – 12^th

You’ve likely heard of the 4 P’s of marketing (price, product, promotion, place)? Well, this activity has your students go through a specific Shark Tank of episode (EP 15 S9), and fill out the 4 P’s for the specific pitches. 

12. Mavro’s Mayhem^TM

Grade Level: 9^th – 12^th

Here’s a very thorough lesson plan around having students practice linear equations in a real-world setting: starting up a business and figuring out what it will take to make a profit.

13. Energy Shark Tank Senior Challenge

Grade Level: 12

You can download each of the sheets for both junior and senior levels in this Energy Shark Tank challenge.

Seniors are put on the business development team of an energy company, with the task of pitching a new energy technology product to a group of investors. The worksheet has lots of thorough questions that will get your students thinking, as well as help them prep their 2 to 3-minute pitch.

Things like:

• Obstacles to people adopting the new technology
• Identifying competing technologies in the market
• How to develop a pilot project

FYI: in order to get the PDFs, you have to go through checkout. Rest assured, the cost is $0.00.

14. Tiger Shark Investment (TSI) Tanked! Challenge

Grade Level: High School

Get your free resource packet filled with curriculum standards, student activities worksheets, assessments, vocabulary worksheets, and more.

This dives into the whole entrepreneur journey, such as:

• Writing a business plan
• The 4 P’s of marketing
• Tools to market your product/service
• Peer evaluation worksheet
• Etc.

Resources to Help Your Students with their Shark Tank Pitches

Looking to add some resources that will help your class’s Shark Tank experience? Here you go.

Perfect the Pitch

Here is an excellent rundown of what made a winning pitch on the show, Shark Tank, and why. Fascinating read!

Two card games that help with creating persuasive pitches include:

• Silicon Valley Startups (ages 14-18 years)
• Snake Oil Game (ages 10+)

You'll also want to check out my review on the Teen Entrepreneur Toolbox.

Entrepreneur Lesson Plans

I’ve got an entire article of 23 entrepreneur lesson plans to help supplement the above worksheets and Shark Tank episodes with deeper learning.

Not only that, but I’ve collected a bunch of youth entrepreneur competitions and awards (including scholarships!) and youth entrepreneur programs to get your kids even more interested in the entrepreneurial journey.

If you have the time, I would definitely go through some of the elevator pitch idea resources, these free business plan templates for kids, and entrepreneur lesson plans on top of your shark tank lesson plans for middle school and high schoolers. That way, your students will get much more out of these free Shark Tank activities.