Skyscrapers: Engineering Up!

The construction of skyscrapers is no simple undertaking, involving the careful coordination and planning of many different people. The third lesson in this series explores this detailed process by first teaching children about the main...

Skyscrapers are amazing feats of architectural design that create the iconic skylines of the world's biggest cities. Young architects explore the defining characteristics of these monstrous towers with the first lesson in this four-part...

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...

Don't twist and turn looking for a resource. The first installment of a six-part series teaches young engineers about the five fundamental forces of compression, tension, shear, bending, and torsion. These forces help explain different...

The sky's the limit when learning about engineering. Future engineers conduct an activity to learn about forces associated with skyscrapers. They design and build a model of a skyscraper from basic household materials, then test their...

Get the class up and going with a lesson that discusses how airplane wings provide lift. Pupils use their knowledge of Bernoulli's Principle to develop an explanation of how it creates lift on airplane wings.

Bridges rely on tension and compression to keep them standing. Pairs test this principle by constructing simple bridges and applying a force to the center. Teams use the provided activity to record their observations of the...

This video segment adapted from the PBS series "Building Big" shows how a structural engineer overcame the challenges of building New York's Citigroup skyscraper over a church by using triangles to add muscle and stability to the...

Do not let friction drag you down! The 11th segment in a series of 22 focuses on the fourth force acting upon an airplane—drag. Pupils learn about the effects and causes of drag.

Force the plane through the air. The activity introduces the force on an airplane that makes it go forward. Pupils learn how Newton's laws of motion apply to flight in the eighth segment of a 22-part unit on flight.