TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Dam Impacts
While the creation of a dam provides many benefits, it can have negative impacts on local ecosystems. Learners learn about the major environmental impacts of dams and the engineering solutions used to address them.
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Teach Engineering: Where Has All the Water Gone?
Students learn about the Earth's water cycle, especially about evaporation. Once a dam is constructed, its reservoir becomes a part of the region's natural hydrologic cycle by receiving precipitation, storing runoff water and evaporating...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Are Dams Forever?
Students learn that dams do not last forever. Similar to other human-made structures, such as roads and bridges, dams require regular maintenance and have a finite lifespan. Many dams built during the 1930-70s, an era of intensive dam...
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Teach Engineering: Ocean Water Desalination
Students learn about the techniques engineers have developed for changing ocean water into drinking water, including thermal and membrane desalination. They begin by reviewing the components of the natural water cycle. They see how...
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Teach Engineering: Detail Drawings: Communicating With Engineers
Students are introduced to detail drawings and the importance of clearly documenting and communicating their designs. They are introduced to the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Y14.5 standard, which controls how engineers...
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Teach Engineering: Physics of the Flying T Shirt
Students are introduced to the physics concepts of air resistance and launch angle as they apply to catapults. This includes the basic concepts of position, velocity and acceleration and their relationships to one another. They use...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Mind Bending Gps Occultations
Students learn about the remote sensing radio occultation technique and how engineers use it with GPS satellites to monitor and study the Earth's atmospheric activity. Students may be familiar with some everyday uses of GPS, but not as...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Engineering the Heart: Heart Valves
Students learn how healthy human heart valves function and the different diseases that can affect heart valves. They also learn about devices and procedures that biomedical engineers have designed to help people with damaged or diseased...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Heat Transfer: From Hot to Not
Students learn the fundamental concepts of heat transfer and heat of reaction. This includes concepts such as physical chemistry, an equation for heat transfer, and a basic understanding of energy and heat transfer.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Light It Up
Through an introduction to the design of lighting systems and the electromagnetic spectrum, young scholars learn about the concept of daylighting as well as two types of light bulbs (lamps) often used in energy-efficient lighting design....
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Teach Engineering: Off the Grid
Students learn and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of renewable and non-renewable energy sources. They also learn about our nation's electric power grid and what it means for a residential home to be "off the grid."
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Teach Engineering: Passive Solar Design
Young scholars are introduced to passive solar design for buildings--an approach that uses the sun's energy and the surrounding climate to provide natural heating and cooling. They learn about some of the disadvantage of conventional...
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Teach Engineering: Homeward Bound
Students review the what they have learned throughout the five lessons in this unit. This includes a review of many types of engineers, reminding students of the various everyday products, structures and processes they design and create...
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Teach Engineering: Photosynthesis Life's Primary Energy Source
This lesson covers the process of photosynthesis and the related plant cell functions of transpiration and cellular respiration. Students will learn how engineers can use the natural process of photosynthesis as an exemplary model of a...
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Teach Engineering: Extinction Prevention via Engineering
Species extinction is happening at an alarming rate according to scientists. In this lesson plan, young scholars are asked to consider why extinction is a problem that we should concern us. They are taught that destruction of habitat is...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Copycat Engineers
This lesson introduces middle schoolers to the idea of biomimicry, or looking to nature for engineering ideas. Biomimicry involves solving human problems by mimicking natural solutions, and it works well because the solutions exist...
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Teach Engineering: Clean It Up!
Students learn about a special branch of engineering called bioremediation, which is the use of living organisms to aid in the clean-up of pollutant spills. Students learn all about bioremediation and see examples of its importance. In...
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Teach Engineering: Light Up Your Life
Students are introduced to the correct technical vocabulary for lighting, which is different than layperson's terms. They learn about lamp (light bulb) technology and how to identify the various types of lighting in their spaces. They...
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Teach Engineering: Measure Twice, Cut Once
Young scholars learn the metric units engineers use to measure mass, distance (or length) and volume. They make estimations using these units and compare their guesses with actual values. To introduce the concepts, the teacher needs...
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Teach Engineering: Form vs. Function
Students take a closer look at cars and learn about some characteristics that affect their energy efficiency, including rolling resistance and the aerodynamics of shape and size. They come to see how vehicles are one example of a product...
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Teach Engineering: The Science of Swinging
Young scholars learn what a pendulum is and how it works in the context of amusement park rides. While exploring the physics of pendulums, they are also introduced to Newton's first law of motion - about continuous motion and inertia.
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Teach Engineering: Solar Angles and Tracking Systems
Students learn about the daily and annual cycles of solar angles used in power calculations to maximize photovoltaic power generation. They gain an overview of solar tracking systems that improve PV panel efficiency by following the sun...
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Teach Engineering: The Temperature Effect
Students explore how the efficiency of a solar photovoltaic (PV) panel is affected by the ambient temperature. They learn how engineers predict the power output of a PV panel at different temperatures and examine some real-world...
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Teach Engineering: Maximum Power Point
Students learn how to find the maximum power point (MPP) of a photovoltaic (PV) panel in order to optimize its efficiency at creating solar power. They also learn about real-world applications and technologies that use this technique, as...