TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Taking the Boat to Manaus
In this activity, the students will apply the concepts they learned regarding mass, volume and density in the previous activities to design a boat.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Eye Witness Reporting
In this activity, the students will develop a briefing for a T.V. evening news program that summarizes their experiences surviving in the Amazon rainforest. The students will have the opportunity to role play as interviewer and...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: What's the Problem?
Students learn of the impending asteroid impact scenario, form teams and begin to study the situation in depth. A simple in-class simulation shows them the potential for destruction and disaster. They complete worksheets and look at maps...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: How Big?
Students teams determine the size of the caverns necessary to house the population of the state of Alabraska from the impending asteroid impact. They measure their classroom to determine area and volume, determine how many people the...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Scaling the Map
Students learn how to determine map distances and areas using the map scale. They get a feel for how much an area represents on the map in relation to the size they are suggesting for their underground caverns to shelter the Alabraska...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Possible Locations
Students use their knowledge of scales and areas to determine the best locations in Alabraska for the underground caverns. They cut out rectangular paper pieces to represent caverns to scale with the maps and place the cut-outs on the...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Rocks, Rocks, Rocks
Students test rocks to identify their physical properties (such as luster, hardness, color, etc.) and classify them as igneous, metamorphic or sedimentary. They complete a worksheet table to record all of the rock properties, and then...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Ranking the Rocks
Student teams assign importance factors, called "desirability points," the rock properties found in the previous lesson/activity in order to mathematically determine the overall best rocks for building caverns within. They learn the...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Drum Roll Please
Student teams commit to a final decision on the location they recommend for safe underground cavern shelter for the citizens of Alabraska. They prepare and deliver final presentations to defend their final decisions to the class.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Testing the Caverns
Students build model caverns and bury them in a tray of sand. They test the models by dropping balls onto them to simulate an asteroid hitting the Earth. By molding papier-mache or clay around balloons (to form domes), or around small...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Renewable Energy Living Lab: The Bright Idea
Students use real-world data to evaluate the feasibility of solar energy and other renewable energy sources in different U.S. locations. Working in small groups, students act as engineers evaluating the suitability of installing solar...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Renewable Energy Living Lab: Energy Experts
Students use real-world data to evaluate various renewable energy sources and the feasibility of implementing these sources. Working in small groups, students use data from the Renewable Energy Living Lab to describe and understand the...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Renewable Energy Living Lab: Energy Priorities
Students analyze real-world data for five types of renewable energy, as found on the online Renewable Energy Living Lab. They identify the best and worst locations for production of each form of renewable energy, and then make...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Renewable Energy Living Lab: Power Your School
Students use real-world data to calculate the potential for solar and wind energy generation at their school location. After examining maps and analyzing data from the online Renewable Energy Living Lab, they write recommendations as to...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Renewable Energy Living Lab
Students become familiar with the online Renewable Energy Living Lab interface and access its real-world solar energy data to evaluate the potential for solar generation in various U.S. locations. They become familiar with where the most...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Renewable Energy Living Lab: Smart Solar
Students use real-world data to evaluate whether solar power is a viable energy alternative for several cities in different parts of the U.S. Working in small groups, they examine maps and make calculations using NREL/US DOE data from...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: A Recipe for Air
Students use M&M's to create a pie graph that expresses their understanding of the composition of air. The students discuss why knowing this information is important to engineers.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Air Is It Really There?
By watching and performing several simple experiments, students develop an understanding of the properties of air: it has mass, it takes up space, it can move, it exerts pressure, it can do work.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: For Your Eyes Only
Students develop their understanding of visible air pollutants with an incomplete combustion demonstration, a "smog in a jar" demonstration, and by building simple particulate matter collectors.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: What's Hiding in the Air?
Students develop an understanding of the effects of invisible air pollutants with a rubber band and hanger air test and a bean plant experiment. They also learn about methods of reducing invisible air pollutants.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Tears in Rain
The goal of this activity is for students to develop visual literacy. They learn how images are manipulated for a powerful effect and how a photograph can make the invisible (pollutants that form acid rain) visible (through the damage...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: I Can't Take the Pressure!
Students develop an understanding of air pressure by using candy or cookie wafers to model how it changes with altitude, by comparing its magnitude to gravitational force per unit area, and by observing its magnitude with an aluminum can...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Dripping Wet or Dry as a Bone?
Students use a sponge and water model to explore the concept of relative humidity and create a percent scale.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Turning the Air Upside Down
Students develop their understanding of air convection currents and temperature inversions by constructing and observing simple models.