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Assessing Normalcy
Students define normal distribution as it relates to the bell curve. In this statistics lesson, students use the central tendencies of mean, median and mode to solve problems. They plot their data and draw conclusion from the graphs.
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Why NP Min?
Students calculate the normal distribution. For this statistics lesson, students use the normal distribution to estimate binomial distributions. They define when to use NP and n(1-p) to make approximations.
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Upside-Down Wings
Students use FoilSim to demonstrate that the graphic analysis of the airflow around one object can be used to hypothesize airflow graphs for objects as they are elongated from a sphere to an airfoil shape.
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Design of Airfoil for Given Lift
Students use FoilSim to design an airplane wing that generates a given lift. As they change parameters such as airspeed, altitude, angle of attack, thickness and curvature of the airfoil, and size of the wing area, the software...
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Lift Relationships
Students use FoilSim (downloadable) to determine how lift is affected by varying parameters on the Airfoil simulation.
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Actual Airflow vs. Ideal Airflow: Stalls
Students use 3-D modeling techniques to observe the characteristic signature of the stall condition apparent on an airfoil at high angles of attack. They use FoilSim to compare the above with ideal airflow.
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Let's Investigate Tooth Decay
Students conduct a simple investigation to explore tooth decay.
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CAN'T TOUCH THIS!
Young scholars discover the best practical shielding material when dealing with radioactive substances. They draw conclusions based on availability of materials, price, and best shielding properties.
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Land Safely...
Learners model the preparation needed for a soft-landing on a planet or object in space. They do this by packaging a raw egg with certain material, and dropping the egg from a given height to test the packaging effectiveness.
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Up, Up and Away with the Scientific Method
Students utilize the scientific method to design a way for a balloon to be suspended between the floor and the ceiling.
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Reading Trees: Understanding Dendrochronology
Students examine tree-ring dating and discuss the lack of water the settlers in Jamestown faced. They create paper tree rings, simulate rain patterns, and describe the history of construction paper tree sequences.
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Building a Pill Bug Palace
Students make "pets" of isopods (potato bugs) to determine their preferred environment and food sources. They record their results on a bar graph and in a scientific report.
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Unfold the Mystery of Mold
Middle schoolers research the conditions in which molds thrive. They apply the scientific method to develop a hypothesis, conduct research and test results.
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Building Tetrahedral Kites
Learners work together to build tetrahedral kites. They must follow directions and the provided materials. They discover the engineering concepts needed to make the kite.
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An Egg-cellent Osmosis Experiment
Students investigate the problem of osmosis by conducting an experiment. They use eggs with the shells dissolved to tell whether fluid can move across the membranes. The experiment provides high interest for all kinds of students to keep...
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Ice Melting
Students design investigations to test various materials to prevent heat gain in frozen water. The task assess students' knowledge of scientific inquiry including the following skills: observation, data collection, measurement,...
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Insulators
Students design and carry out an investigation to test which materials is the best insulator: they predict which way heat energy flows in a system and analyze the flow of energy in a system from one point to another and from one form to...
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Unknown Liquids
Students must design and conduct an experiment to determine which unknown liquid has a greater density based on basic information about the liquids and containers. Students are given specific materials to work with.
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Friction of a Block Weight
Fifth graders hypothesize and design an experiment to study the relationship between a block weight and the number of washers it takes to pull a block across various surfaces. Students graph results and apply their findings to a...
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Velocity
Students determine the average speed of a toy car as it travels six different distances set up by Students. Three trials are done for each distance. The only requirements is that the longest distance must be at least three times longer...
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Starch and Sugar Testing 2
Students design and conduct an experiment to determine which of three solutions contain starch or sugar. This task assess students' ability to make simple observations, design simple experiments, utilize indicators, and make generalized...
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Pond-water Populations
Students design and conduct and experiment on algae, for a two week period, to answer the question "In your investigation, how does changing one factor affect the growth of organisms?"
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Stimulus/Response in Invertebrates
Students design and conduct and experiment to determine how invertebrates react to an outside stimulus such as light and other stimuli. Student must develop a clear plan of action, collect data in an organized manner and analyze their...
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Erosion
Young scholars design and conduct an open-ended investigation using a variety of earth materials to answer a questions posed by the teacher: How does the erosion of sand compare with the erosion of gravel? After producing evidence that...