TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Renewable Energy Living Lab: The Bright Idea
Students use real-world data to evaluate the feasibility of solar energy and other renewable energy sources in different U.S. locations. Working in small groups, students act as engineers evaluating the suitability of installing solar...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Earthquakes Living Lab: Designing for Disaster
Students learn about factors that engineers take into consideration when designing buildings for earthquake-prone regions.
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Teach Engineering: Renewable Energy Living Lab: Energy Experts
Students use real-world data to evaluate various renewable energy sources and the feasibility of implementing these sources. Working in small groups, students use data from the Renewable Energy Living Lab to describe and understand the...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Renewable Energy Living Lab: Energy Priorities
Students analyze real-world data for five types of renewable energy, as found on the online Renewable Energy Living Lab. They identify the best and worst locations for production of each form of renewable energy, and then make...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Earthquakes Living Lab: Epicenters and Magnitudes
Students learn how engineers characterize earthquakes through seismic data. Acting as engineers, they use real-world seismograph data to locate earthquake epicenters via triangulation and determine earthquake magnitudes.
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Teach Engineering: Earthquakes Living Lab: Geology and Earthquakes in Japan
Using the online resources provided through the Earthquakes Living Lab, students investigate reasons why large earthquakes occur in Japan, drawing conclusions from tectonic plate structures and the locations of fault lines.
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Teach Engineering: Earthquakes Living Lab: Locating Earthquakes
Students use U.S. Geological Survey real-time, real-world, seismic data from around the planet to identify where earthquakes occur and look for trends in earthquake activity.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Renewable Energy Living Lab: Power Your School
Students use real-world data to calculate the potential for solar and wind energy generation at their school location. After examining maps and analyzing data from the online Renewable Energy Living Lab, they write recommendations as to...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Renewable Energy Living Lab
Students become familiar with the online Renewable Energy Living Lab interface and access its real-world solar energy data to evaluate the potential for solar generation in various U.S. locations. They become familiar with where the most...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Earthquakes Living Lab: P Waves, S Waves and More
Students learn what causes earthquakes, how we measure and locate them, and their effects and consequences.
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Teach Engineering: Earthquakes Living Lab: The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake
Students examine the effects of geology on earthquake magnitudes and how engineers anticipate and prepare for these effects. They look in-depth at the historical 1906 San Francisco earthquake and compare it to the Kobe, Japan earthquake,...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Renewable Energy Living Lab: Smart Solar
Students use real-world data to evaluate whether solar power is a viable energy alternative for several cities in different parts of the U.S. Working in small groups, they examine maps and make calculations using NREL/US DOE data from...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: A Recipe for Air
Students use M&M's to create a pie graph that expresses their understanding of the composition of air. The students discuss why knowing this information is important to engineers.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Air Is It Really There?
By watching and performing several simple experiments, students develop an understanding of the properties of air: it has mass, it takes up space, it can move, it exerts pressure, it can do work.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: For Your Eyes Only
Students develop their understanding of visible air pollutants with an incomplete combustion demonstration, a "smog in a jar" demonstration, and by building simple particulate matter collectors.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Green Marketing
Students learn basic marketing concepts and use professional marketing techniques to compose an advertisement for a hybrid vehicle. In the process, they learn the principles of comparative analysis.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: What's Hiding in the Air?
Students develop an understanding of the effects of invisible air pollutants with a rubber band and hanger air test and a bean plant experiment. They also learn about methods of reducing invisible air pollutants.
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Teach Engineering: Tears in Rain
The goal of this activity is for students to develop visual literacy. They learn how images are manipulated for a powerful effect and how a photograph can make the invisible (pollutants that form acid rain) visible (through the damage...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: I Can't Take the Pressure!
Students develop an understanding of air pressure by using candy or cookie wafers to model how it changes with altitude, by comparing its magnitude to gravitational force per unit area, and by observing its magnitude with an aluminum can...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Dripping Wet or Dry as a Bone?
Students use a sponge and water model to explore the concept of relative humidity and create a percent scale.
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Teach Engineering: Turning the Air Upside Down
Students develop their understanding of air convection currents and temperature inversions by constructing and observing simple models.
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Teach Engineering: Take Their Word for It!
Students learn how scientific terms are formed using Latin and Greek roots, prefixes and suffixes, and on that basis, learn to make an educated guess about the meaning of a word. Students are introduced to the role played by metaphor in...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Moving Without Wheels
In a class demonstration, students observe a simple water cycle model to better understand its role in pollutant transport. This activity shows one way in which pollution is affected by the water cycle; it simulates a point source of...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Acid (And Base) Rainbows
Students are introduced to the differences between acids and bases and how to use indicators, such as pH paper and red cabbage juice, to distinguish between them.