Nothing says organization quite like a table. The third instructional activity in a six-part Mixtures and Solutions unit teaches young scientists about elements and the periodic table. They learn how the periodic table is organized and...

Math rocks! Cavern design teams determine the rankings of rock types based upon desirability points. The points are connected to the properties of the rocks and their usefulness in building a cavern. 

 The class must determine the magnetic properties of different materials, including aluminum and steel by sorting through materials using a magnet. Groups make a prediction on whether a material is magnetic and then perform...

Too much material will weigh you down. The sixth segment in a series of 22 highlights how weight affects a plane. Pupils learn that engineers take the properties of materials, including weight, when designing something. 

Introduce materials science with a class demonstration. After showing a PowerPoint presentation on materials and their properties, instructors provide a ceramic tile, a Popsicle stick, a paper clip, and a plastic bag as examples of...

Let the resource stretch the minds of your young scientists with a lesson about tensile strength and stiffness of materials. Groups consider how easily materials stretch and relate this property to engineering design.

Groups use a marble to determine the viscosity of household fluids. The procedure calls for pupils to measure the amount of time it takes a marble to fall a specified distance in the fluids. Using unit conversions and algebra, the teams...

In this electronics worksheet, students explore the properties of semiconductors to complete 17 short answer and problem solving questions.

Students explore encoding systems and decoding technology. For this barcoding lesson students examine how coding impacts society including distribution, and inventory. 

The design challenge: develop a method to separate steel from aluminum. The first lesson plan in an eight-part series introduces the class to the grand challenge of ciming up with a method to streamline a sorting process at a...

Make the connection between Hooke's law and elasticity with an activity that introduces the class to the behavior of elastic materials. The resource defines stress and strain to calculate the modules of elasticity of...

An MRI uses both a magnetic and electricity, so how do the two interact with each other? Class members observe the effects on a charged particle when it is subject to both an electrical and magnetic field. The teacher background...

Sixth graders listen to Demi's, On Grain of Rice: A Mathematical Folktale. They use the problem solving strategy of finding a pattern to determine the number of rice Rani will receive after 30 days. They create a spreadsheet which...

Fourth graders select the Quadrilateral Quest game, they find all quadrilaterals with the given properties. They are told that the word congruent in this game means equal. Students are given two to four properties of quadrilaterals. ...

Scholars learn how to crack secret codes as they continue reading from the Blown to Bits and try to crack the random substitution cipher. They also begin learning about the Vigenere cipher. 

An outstanding lesson on triangles awaits your math scholars. Learners focus on the triangle, which is the strongest of all polygons. They see the role that triangles play in the design of buildings, and learn about triangle...

Middle and high schoolers explore the concepts of architectural rigidity. They analyze a variety of polygons, and explain why some shapes add more strength to structures than others. The PBS video, "Building Big," is utilized in this plan.

Investigate how public key cryptography works. Scholars continue their study of one-way functions and asymmetric keys and apply this information to public key cryptography. They use an app to explore public key cryptography and its...

Model an oil spill cleanup. An engaging engineering lesson has groups using aerogels to simulate an oil spill cleanup (vegetable oil in water). Along the way, they learn about nanotechnology and hydrophilia/hydrophobia.

Using a teacher-built wind tunnel constructed from a paper concrete tube form, a fan, and a balance, individuals determine the amount of drag their rocket design will experience in flight. Pupils make modifications to increase the...

Discover how to analyze architecture from a geometric standpoint. The fourth installment of an 11-part unit on architecture first provides a presentation on axis, balance, basic form, formal, pattern, proportion, symmetry, and tripartite...

Explore optics using an inquiry-based experimental approach! Young scholars use a set of materials to design and build a unit capable of focusing a beam of light. They experiment with different lenses to determine the best approach to...

Using their knowledge of right triangles, pupils find out how far a ship is from a light house. Class members determine how far around the world a ship would be sailing at a constant speed.

Students research additional information about questions on their worksheet. In this energy activity, students develop visual aids of their proposed solution to the problem. They present their work in class.