Modeling Teacher Resources

Our final proposal for the cost of the bridge requested is ... In the last segment in a series of 10, pairs work together to develop a proposal for a city bridge design. The class completes a cost comparison between concrete and steel to...

Explore the geometry of treasure hunting! Learners use geometry to design a treasure recovery strategy. The objective is to create a design that minimizes the amount of work required. Budding mathematicians use properties of triangles as...

It's time to redesign the healthcare system. The seventh installment of a 9-part technology/engineering series teaches future engineers about patient flow and how to design healthcare centers to improve flow. Classroom simulations allow...

Elements don't have fingers, but they have fingerprints! An interactive simulation gives young scientists the opportunity to study orbital changes of an atom and the corresponding spectrum reading. They realize how each atom has a...

Everything in moderation, especially candy. Scholars design and build a dispenser for candy. But, they can't get too carried away—only three or four pieces of candy can come out of the dispenser at one time.

Introduce young thespians to all aspects of the theater. A syllabus for a one-semester drama course provides lessons that take learners from the history of drama to the many facets of play production.

Pasta is great for cooking—and for making Ferris wheels. Aspiring engineers use an assortment of pasta types to create a functioning Ferris wheel. They keep track of the design process to refine their designs, if necessary. Let's hope no...

Give your learners a leg up in their study of engineering. Groups design and create a prothestic for a leg. They test out their designs for strength, stability, durability, and comfort.

Become a bean counter. Pupils use a fun activity to design and execute an experiment to determine whether they can grab more beans with their dominant hand or non-dominant hand. They use the class data to create scatter plots and then...

Functions help make the world make more sense. Individuals model real-world situations with functions. They match a variety of contexts to different function types to finish a helpful resource.

A boss who can't do math? Oh, no! Young entrepreneurs use linear and exponential models to determine which discount will yield the most profit on ticket sales.

You can make it if you bake it! Young scientists model electronic chip fabrication with an easy bake oven. They create a design to embed in their brownie "chips" and compare their models to wafer production in basic nanotechnology.

If you think you can do better, feel free to give it a try. Pupils learn about the work on Temple Grandin and consider ways to improve animal handling facilities. They work in groups to build models to showcase their ideas.

Bridge the gap between mathematics and Career Technical Education. Pupils research the cost associated with building storage sheds and analyze possible profit. They build scale models and determine if building and selling the sheds is a...

Planning a party of 45 guests may be more complicated than it would seem.  Learners must design the space in accordance with these constraints about the space available in the room. They need to calculate area, circumference,...

Conduct research focused on improving a current technology by having students work in groups to investigate improvements that could be made to a particular piece of technology. They list the current problems and attempt to develop...

Does the early bird really get the worm? If so, which color of worm does it prefer? In an exciting and easy week-long field investigation, young field biologists set up a one square meter feeding area for birds. If you have a webcam,...

Show learners the power of mathematics as they model real-life designs. Pupils graph a periodic function by comparing the degree of rotation to the height of a ferris wheel. 

Protect the marshmallows! Groups create contraptions that will keep marshmallows in a cup, even after dropping them from a certain height. This is a fun way to model the shock-absorbing capabilities of spacecraft.

Off they go — launching rockets is fun. The lesson plan contains templates to build paper rockets that can be launched from a PVC pipe launcher. Individuals or groups build the rockets and determine the shapes for their fins. Included...

Caffeine affects your heart rate — or does it? Learners study experimental design while conducting their own experiment. They collect heart rate data after drinking a caffeinated beverage, create a box plot, and draw conclusions....

Investigate invisible forces. Young engineers design a setup that changes the direction of a steel ball using a magnetic force. The purpose of the setup is to model the gravitational pull of spacecraft by planetary bodies.

Antarctica is a big place, large enough to provide ample opportunities to learn about math. A two-week unit teaches middle school mathematics concepts using project-based learning. The resource covers functions, geometry (area,...

Bridge the gaps in your knowledge of bridges. Individuals learn about bridge types by building models. The activity introduces beam bridges, arch bridges, truss bridges, and suspension bridges.