TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Computer Accuracy
Accuracy of measurement in navigation depends very much on the situation. If a sailor's target is an island 200 km wide, sailing off center by 10 or 20 km is not a major problem. But, if the island were only 1 km wide, it would be missed...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Classroom Triangles
In this activity, students will use bearing measurements to triangulate and determine objects' locations. Working in teams of two or three, students must put on their investigative hats as they take bearing measurements to specified...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Topo Triangulation
In this activity, students will learn how to read a topographical map and how to triangulate with just a map. True triangulation requires both a map and compass, but to simplify the activity and make it possible indoors, the compass...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: State Your Position
To navigate, you must know roughly where you stand relative to your designation, so you can head in the right direction. In locations where landmarks are not available to help navigate (in deserts, on seas), objects in the sky are the...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Obi Wan Adobe: Engineering for Strength
Students conduct an experiment to determine how varying the composition of a construction material affects its strength. They make several adobe bricks with differing percentages of sand, soil, fibrous material and water. They test the...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Swinging With Style
Students experientially learn about the characteristics of a simple physics phenomenon - the pendulum - by riding on playground swings. They use pendulum terms and a timer to experiment with swing variables. They extend their knowledge...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Pump It!
Pumps are used to get drinking water to our houses every day! And in disaster situations, pumps are essential to keep flood water out. In this hands-on activity, student groups design, build, test and improve devices to pump water as if...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: A New Angle on Pv Efficiency
Students examine how the orientation of a photovoltaic (PV) panel relative to the sun affects the efficiency of the panel. Using sunshine (or a lamp) and a small PV panel connected to a digital multimeter, students vary the angle of the...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Ice, Ice, Pv!
Students examine how the power output of a photovoltaic (PV) solar panel is affected by temperature changes. Using a 100-watt lamp and a small PV panel connected to a digital multimeter, teams vary the temperature of the panel and record...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Pointing at Maximum Power for Pv
Student teams measure voltage and current in order to determine the power output of a photovoltaic (PV) panel. They vary the resistance in a simple circuit connected to the panel to demonstrate the effects on voltage, current, and power...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Concentrating on the Sun With P Vs
Students design, build and test reflectors to measure the effect of solar reflectance on the efficiency of solar PV panels. They use a small PV panel, a multimeter, cardboard and foil to build and test their reflectors in preparation for...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Don't Confuse Your Qs!
Students investigate the difference between qualitative and quantitative measurements and observations. By describing objects both qualitatively and quantitatively, they learn that both types of information are required for complete...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Permeable Pavement
In this activity, students investigate how different riparian ground covers, such as grass and pavement, affect river flooding. They learn about permeable and impermeable materials through the measurement how much water is absorbed by...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Rock Jeopardy!
Students reinforce their understanding of rocks, the rock cycle, and geotechnical engineering by playing a trivia game. They work in groups to prepare Jeopardy-type trivia questions (answers) and compete against each other to demonstrate...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Tunnel Through!
Students apply their knowledge about mountains and rocks to transportation engineering, with the task of developing a model mountain tunnel that simulates the principles behind real-life engineering design. Student teams design and...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Soil Core Sampling
Students learn about one method used in environmental site assessments. They practice soil sampling by creating soil cores, studying soil profiles and characterizing soil profiles in borehole logs. They use their analysis to make...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Rooftop Gardens
Students explore whether rooftop gardens are a viable option for combating the urban heat island effect. Can rooftop gardens reduce the temperature inside and outside houses? Teams each design and construct two model buildings using foam...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Shake It Up! Engineering for Seismic Waves
Students learn about how engineers design and build shake tables to test the ability of buildings to withstand the various types of seismic waves generated by earthquakes. Just like engineers, students design and build shake tables to...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Watch Out for the Blind Spots
In this service-learning engineering project, students follow the steps of the engineering design process to design a hearing testing device. More specifically, they design a prototype machine that can be used to test the peripheral...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Tippy Tap Plus Piping
The Tippy Tap hand-washing station is an inexpensive and effective device used extensively in the developing world. One shortcoming of the homemade device is that it must be manually refilled with water and therefore is of limited use in...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Tools and Equipment, Part I
Through a series of activities, students discover that the concept of mechanical advantage describes reality fairly well. They act as engineers creating a design for a ramp at a construction site by measuring four different inclined...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Machines and Tools, Part Ii
In this activity, students gain first-hand experience with the mechanical advantage of pulleys. Students are given the challenge of helping save a whale by moving it from an aquarium back to its natural habitat into the ocean. They set...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: The Magician's Catapult
In this activity, students reinforce their understanding of compound machines by building a catapult. This compound machine consists of a lever and a wheel-and-axel. Catapults have been designed by engineers for a variety of purposes -...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Watch It Slide!
Students use inclined planes as they recreate the difficult task of raising a monolith of rock to build a pyramid. They compare the push and pull of different-sized blocks up an inclined plane, determine the angle of inclination, and...