TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Six Minutes of Terror
This lesson discusses how each component of a spacecraft is specifically designed so that a rover can land safely in six minutes. Also, students will learn how common, everyday materials and technology, like nylon, polyester and airbags,...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Manned Mission to Mars
This lesson will discuss the details for a possible future manned mission to Mars. The human risks are discussed and evaluated to minimize danger to astronauts. A specialized launch schedule is provided and the different professions of...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: What Makes Airplanes Fly?
Learners begin to explore the idea of a force. To further their understanding of drag, gravity and weight, they conduct activities that model the behavior of parachutes and helicopters. An associated literacy activity engages the class...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Crash! Bang!
Students learn about the physical force of linear momentum - movement in a straight line - by investigating collisions. They learn an equation that engineers use to describe momentum. Students also investigate the psychological...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Motion Commotion
Students learn why and how motion occurs and what governs changes in motion, as described by Newton's three laws of motion. They gain hands-on experience with the concepts of forces, changes in motion, and action and reaction. In an...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Red Light, Green Light
Building upon their understanding of forces and Newton's laws of motion, students learn about the force of friction, specifically with respect to cars. They explore the friction between tires and the road to learn how it affects the...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Rocking the Boat
The concepts of stability and equilibrium are introduced while students learn how these ideas are related to the concept of center of mass. They gain further understanding when they see, first-hand, how equilibrium is closely related to...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Ring Around the Rosie
Students learn the concept of angular momentum and its correlation to mass, velocity and radius. They experiment with rotation and an object's mass distribution. In an associated literacy activity, students use basic methods of...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Swinging on a String
Students explore how pendulums work and why they are useful in everyday applications. In a hands-on activity, they experiment with string length, pendulum weight and angle of release. In an associated literacy activity, students explore...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Understanding Elements
This lesson plan examines the properties of elements and the periodic table. Students learn the basic definition of an element and the 18 elements that build most of the matter in the universe. The periodic table is described as one...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Naturally Disastrous
Students are introduced to natural disasters, and learn the difference between natural hazards and natural disasters. They discover the many types of natural hazards - avalanche, earthquake, flood, forest fire, hurricane, landslide,...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Earthquake Formation
Students learn about the structure of the earth and how an earthquake happens. In one activity, students make a model of the earth including all of its layers. In a teacher-led demonstration, students learn about continental drift. In...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Earthquakes Rock!
Students learn the two main methods to measure earthquakes, the Richter Scale and the Mercalli Scale. They make a model of a seismograph - a measuring device that records an earthquake on a seismogram. Students also investigate which...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Land on the Run
Students learn about landslides, discovering that there are different types of landslides that occur at different speeds - from very slow to very quick. All landslides are the result of gravity, friction and the materials involved. Both...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Tsunami Attack!
Students learn about tsunamis, discovering what causes them and what makes them so dangerous. They learn that engineers design detection and warning equipment, as well as structures that that can survive the strong wave forces. In a...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Tornado!
Students learn about tornadoes - their basic characteristics, damage and occurrences. Students are introduced to the ways that engineers consider strong winds, specifically tornadoes, in their design of structures. Also, students learn...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Where Is Here?
In this instructional activity, young scholars are shown the very basics of navigation. The concepts of relative and absolute location, latitude, longitude and cardinal directions are discussed, as well as the use and principles of a map...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: How to Be a Great Navigator!
In this lesson, students will learn how great navigators of the past stayed on course - that is, the historical methods of navigation. The concepts of dead reckoning and celestial navigation are discussed.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Navigating by the Numbers
In this lesson, students will learn that math is important in navigation and engineering. Ancient land and sea navigators started with the most basic of navigation equations (Speed x Time = Distance). Today, navigational satellites use...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Getting It Right!
In this lesson, students will investigate error. As shown in earlier activities from navigation lessons 1 through 3, without an understanding of how errors can affect your position, you cannot navigate well. Introducing accuracy and...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Topo Map Mania!
Maps are designed to allow people to travel to a new location without a guide to show the way. They tell us information about areas to which we may or may not have ever been. There are many types of maps available for both recreational...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Getting to the Point
In this lesson plan, students learn how to determine location by triangulation. We describe the process of triangulation and practice finding your location on a worksheet, in the classroom, and outdoors.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: By Land, Sea or Air
In this lesson, middle schoolers learn that navigational techniques change when people travel to different places - land, sea, air and in space. For example, an explorer traveling by land uses different methods of navigation than a...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Navigating at the Speed of Satellites
For thousands of years, navigators have looked to the sky for direction. Today, celestial navigation has simply switched from using natural objects to human-created satellites. A constellation of satellites, called the Global Positioning...