Three activities allow young flight engineers to understand the 4 principles of flight (weight, lift, thrust, and drag), to construct a glider, and to create a propeller. Multicultural history and literature are integrated by reading...

Students discuss how the invention of flight changed the way people live today. In groups, they compare and contrast the differences between weight, lift, thrust and drag. Using these principles, they create a glider and propeller with...

Students research the relationship between physical activity and the prevention of illness, disease and premature death. Students understand that working out regularly will increase muscular strength, endurance and improve many areas of...

Students design a skydiver and parachute constraption to demonstrate how drag caused by air resistance slows the descent of skydivers as they travel back to Earth. They experience how gravity pulls the skydiver toward the earth and how...

Students examine force and conduct activities that model parachutes and helicopters.  In this airplanes lesson students identify the forces that make airplanes fly higher and land. 

First graders participate in a study of air pressure in which the investigate if air has the strength to lift heavy objects. They work in teams to develop a hypothesis about whether air in bags would be able to lift a stack of books....

Students experiment with common objects such as spools, string and soap to determine how pulleys make it easier to move large objects. They look at the difference between fixed and movable pulleys. They examine the many uses engineers...

Fifth graders discover the rules by which the lever slants and balances. They determine that there are a great many tools that employ the lever principle even in their ordinary environments. They consider how to use objects easily...

Learners explore weight by building a spring scale and observing how it responds to objects with different masses. Each team of students can make their own spring scale by following steps which are specifically outlined in the plan. As...

Student design and build Lego vehicles that drag given amount of weight up an incline. They show how this demonstrates Egyptian methods of pyramid construction.

High schoolers study mechanical engineering and how it plays a part in the creation of windmills. They design and test their own windmills using various materials and sail designs.

Students explore electromagnetism, simple machines and the design process. They use the concepts of electromagnetism to design and build a device that uses an electromagnet, a pulley and a lever using the provided Engineering Design...

Pupils investigate the connection between work, potential energy, kinetic energy, and heat. In this physics lesson, students use pulleys to produce mechanical advantages and incline planes to demonstrate energy conversion.