TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: What Color Is Your Air Today?
Students develop awareness and understanding of the daily air quality using the Air Quality Index (AQI) listed in the newspaper. They explore what engineers can do to help reduce poor air quality.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Environmental History Timeline
Students develop critical thinking skills by interviewing a person who has perspective on environmental history. Students explore the concept of a timeline, including historical milestones, and develop a sense of the context of events.
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Teach Engineering: Good News We're on the Rise!
Students build and observe a simple aneroid barometer to learn about changes in barometric pressure and weather forecasting.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Dangerous Air
By tracing the movement of radiation released during an accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, students see how air pollution, like particulate matter, can become a global issue.
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Teach Engineering: How Predictable!
Students follow weather forecasts to gauge their accuracy and produce a weather report for the class. They develop skills of observation, recording and reporting.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Acid Rain Effects
Students conduct a simple experiment to model and explore the harmful effects of acid rain (vinegar) on living (green leaf and eggshell) and non-living (paper clip) objects.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: It's Really Heating Up in Here!
Students create and observe a greenhouse effect model and discuss the implications of global warming theory for engineers, themselves and the Earth.
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Teach Engineering: Pollution Politics
Students learn how a bill becomes law in the U.S. Congress and research legislation related to global warming.
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Teach Engineering: Smoke and Mirrors
Students develop a persuasive peer-to-peer case against smoking, with the goal to understand how language usage can influence perception, attitudes and behavior.
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Teach Engineering: Cleaning Air With Balloons
Students observe and discuss a simple balloon model of an electrostatic precipitator to better understand how this pollutant recovery method functions in cleaning industrial air pollution.
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Teach Engineering: A Merry Go Round for Dirty Air
Students observe and discuss a cup and pencil model of a cyclone to better understand how this pollutant recovery method functions in cleaning industrial air pollution.
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Teach Engineering: Let's Bag It
Students observe and discuss a vacuum cleaner model of a baghouse to better understand how this pollutant recovery method functions in cleaning industrial air pollution.
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Teach Engineering: What's a Kid to Do?
Students write letters as part of an environmental action campaign. They become more aware of global environmental problems and play a part in their solution.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Fun With Bernoulli
While we know there is air around us all the time, we normally do not notice the air pressure. The purpose of this is activity is to use Bernoulli's Principle to manipulate air pressure so we can see its influence on the objects around us.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Air Pressure
Air pressure is pushing on us all the time although we do not usually notice it. This activity will discuss the units of pressure and give the students a sense of just how much air pressure is pushing on them.
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Teach Engineering: Windy Tunnel
The purpose of this activity is to demonstrate Bernoulli's Principle as it relates to winged flight. The students will use computers to see the influence of camber and airfoil angle of attack on the lift.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Bend That Bar
In this activity, the students will learn about material properties. They will learn that engineers must consider several material properties when designing. This activity focuses on strength-to-weight ratios and how sometimes the...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Physics Tug of War
In this activity, students will learn about Newton's 2nd Law of Motion. They will learn that the force required to move a book is proportional to the weight of the book. Engineers use this relationship to determine how much force they...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: You're a Pushover!
The purpose of this activity is to demonstrate Newton's 3rd Law of Motion, which is the physical law that governs thrust in aircraft. The students will do several activities that show that for every action there is an equal and opposite...
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Teach Engineering: What a Drag!
The purpose of this activity is to demonstrate how drag affects falling objects. Students will make a variety of shapes out of paper and see how size and shape affects the speed with which their paper shapes fall. They will also be able...
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Teach Engineering: Heads Up
The purpose of this activity is to demonstrate some of the different parts of an airplane through the construction of a paper airplane. Students will build several different kinds of paper airplanes in order to figure out what makes an...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Better by Design
The purpose of this activity is to use a scientific method to determine the effect of control surfaces on a paper glider. The students will construct a paper airplane/glider and test its performance to determine the base characteristics...
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Teach Engineering: Let's Get It There Fast
The purpose of this activity is to demonstrate how aircraft have decreased the amount of time it takes to transport people and cargo. Students will compute the time it takes to travel between two cities for several modes of...
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Teach Engineering: Balsa Glider Competition
The purpose of this activity is to bring together the students' knowledge of engineering and airplanes and the creation of a glider model to determine how each modification affects the flight. The students will use a design procedure...