Water Cycle Elementary School CurricularUnit
Water is essential to life. Understanding how the water cycle works, the importance of water as a natural resource, and how our household water cycle functions is essential knowledge for everyone. Through a range of water-based explorations and the engineering design process, students learn about the water cycle and how engineers manage it.
Paper Airplanes: Building, Testing, & Improving. Heads Up! Middle School Activity
Students learn the different airplane parts, including wing, flap, aileron, fuselage, cockpit, propeller, spinner, engine, tail, rudder, elevator. Then they each build one of four different (provided) paper airplane (really, glider) designs with instructions, which they test in three trials, measuring flight distance and time. Then they design and build (fold, cut) a second paper airplane design of their own creation, which they also test for flight distance and time. They graph the collected class data. Analysis of these experiments with "model" airplanes and their results help them see and figure out what makes airplanes fly and what can be changed to influence the flying characteristics and performance of airplanes.
Spaghetti Bridges Middle School Activity
Civil engineers design structures such as buildings, dams, highways and bridges. Student teams explore the field of engineering by making bridges using spaghetti as their primary building material. Then they test their bridges to see how much weight they can carry before breaking.
Help Bill! Bioprinting Skin, Muscle and Bone High School Activity
Students operate mock 3D bioprinters in order to print tissue constructs of bone, muscle and skin for a fictitious trauma patient, Bill. The model bioprinters are made from ordinary materials— cardboard, dowels, wood, spools, duct tape, zip ties and glue (constructed by the teacher or the students)—and use squeeze bags of icing to lay down tissue layers. Student groups apply what they learned about biological tissue composition and tissue engineering in the associated lesson to design and fabricate model replacement tissues. They tangibly learn about the technical aspects and challenges of 3D bioprinting technology, as well as great detail about the complex cellular composition of tissues. At activity end, teams present their prototype designs to the class.
Introduction to Genetic Engineering and Its Applications High School Lesson
Students learn how engineers apply their understanding of DNA to manipulate specific genes to produce desired traits, and how engineers have used this practice to address current problems facing humanity. They learn what genetic engineering means and examples of its applications, as well as moral and ethical problems related to its implementation. Students fill out a flow chart to list the methods to modify genes to create GMOs and example applications of bacteria, plant and animal GMOs.
All About Water! Elementary School Lesson
Students learn about the differences between surface and ground water as well as the differences between streams, rivers and lakes. Then, they learn about dissolved organic matter (DOM) and the role it plays in identifying drinking water sources. Then students are introduced to conventional drinking water treatment processes by developing and implementing their own water filtration system through the associated activity. A student worksheet and answer key are provided.
Bone Fractures and Engineering High School Lesson
Students learn about the role engineers and engineering play in repairing severe bone fractures. They acquire knowledge about the design and development of implant rods, pins, plates, screws and bone grafts. Students then can use the associated activity to practice their own bone repairing procedure. They learn about materials science, biocompatibility and minimally-invasive surgery.
Bombs Away! Egg Drop Experiment Middle School Activity
Students design and build devices to protect and accurately deliver dropped eggs. The devices and their contents represent care packages that must be safely delivered to people in a disaster area with no road access. Similar to engineering design teams, students design their devices using a number of requirements and constraints such as limited supplies and time. The activity emphasizes the change from potential energy to kinetic energy of the devices and their contents and the energy transfer that occurs on impact. Students enjoy this competitive challenge as they attain a deeper understanding of mechanical energy concepts.
Wind Power! Designing a Wind Turbine Elementary School Activity
Students learn how engineers transform wind energy into electrical energy by building their own miniature wind turbines and measuring the electrical current they produce. They explore how design and position affect the electrical energy production.
Kinetic and Potential Energy of Motion Middle School Lesson
In this lesson, students are introduced to both potential energy and kinetic energy as forms of mechanical energy. A hands-on activity demonstrates how potential energy can change into kinetic energy by swinging a pendulum, illustrating the concept of conservation of energy. Students calculate the potential energy of the pendulum and predict how fast it will travel knowing that the potential energy will convert into kinetic energy. They verify their predictions by measuring the speed of the pendulum.
How Mountains are Formed Middle School Lesson
Students investigate how mountains are formed. Concepts include the composition and structure of the Earth's tectonic plates and tectonic plate boundaries, with an emphasis on plate convergence as it relates to mountain formation. Students learn that geotechnical engineers design technologies to measure movement of tectonic plates and mountain formation, as well as design to alter the mountain environment to create safe and dependable roadways and tunnels.
Creating Model Working Lungs: Just Breathe Elementary School Activity
Students explore the inhalation/exhalation process that occurs in the lungs during respiration. Using everyday materials, each student team creates a model pair of lungs.
Properties of Mixtures vs. Solutions: Mix It Up! Elementary School Lesson
Students are introduced to the distinctive properties of mixtures and solutions. A class demonstration led by the teachers gives students the opportunity to compare and contrast the physical characteristics of a few simple mixtures and solutions. They discuss the separation of mixtures and solutions back into their original components as well as different engineering applications of mixtures and solutions.
Building a Barometer Middle School Activity
Students investigate the weather from a systems approach, learning how individual parts of a system work together to create a final product. They learn how a barometer works to measure the Earth's air pressure by building a model using simple materials. Students analyze the changes in barometer measurements over time and compare those to actual weather conditions. They learn how to use a barometer to understand air pressure and predict real-world weather changes.
Bacteria Transformation High School Activity
Students construct paper recombinant plasmids to simulate the methods genetic engineers use to create modified bacteria. They learn what role enzymes, DNA and genes play in the modification of organisms. For the particular model they work on, they isolate a mammal insulin gene and combine it with a bacteria's gene sequence (plasmid DNA) for production of the protein insulin.
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