TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Biodomes Engineering Design Project: Lessons 2 6
In this lesson students learn about biodomesand how engineers use them. Students then create their own biodomes.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Plant Cycles: Photosynthesis & Transpiration
What do plants need? Students examine the effects of light and air on green plants, learning the processes of photosynthesis and transpiration. Student teams plant seeds, placing some in sunlight and others in darkness. They make...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Biomimicry: Natural Designs
Students learn about biomimicry and how engineers often imitate nature in the design of innovative new products. They demonstrate their knowledge of biomimicry by practicing brainstorming and designing a new product based on what they...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Bridge Types: Tensile & Compressive Forces
Students explore how tension and compression forces act on three different bridge types. Using sponges, cardboard and string, they create models of beam, arch and suspension bridges and apply forces to understand how they disperse or...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Straw Bridges
Working as engineering teams, students design and create model beam bridges using plastic drinking straws and tape as their construction materials. Their goal is to build the strongest bridge with a truss pattern of their own design,...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Load It Up!
Students take a hands-on look at the design of bridge piers (columns). First they brainstorm types of loads that might affect a Colorado bridge. Then they determine the maximum possible load for that scenario, and calculate the...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Shallow & Deep Foundations
Students investigate the critical nature of foundations as they learn differences between shallow and deep foundations, including the concepts of bearing pressure and settlement. Using models representing a shallow foundation and a deep...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Breaking the Mold
In this math activity, students conduct a strength test using modeling clay, creating their own stress vs. strain graphs, which they compare to typical steel and concrete graphs. They learn the difference between brittle and ductile...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Dinosaur Breath
Through discussion and hands-on experimentation, students learn about the geological (ancient) carbon cycle. They investigate the role of dinosaurs in the carbon cycle and the eventual storage of carbon in the form of chalk. Students...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Wild Wind
Students will learn the difference between global, prevailing and local winds. In this activity, students will make a wind vane out of paper, a straw and a soda bottle and use it to measure wind direction over time. Finally, they will...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Engineering for the 3 Little Pigs
The purpose of this activity is to demonstrate the importance of rocks, soils and minerals in engineering and how using the right material for the right job is important. The students build three different sand castles and test them for...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: One World Ocean
In this activity, students learn about ocean currents and the difference between salt and fresh water. They use colored ice cubes to see how cold and warm water mix and how this mixing causes currents. Also, students learn how surface...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Can You Catch the Water?
Students construct a three-dimensional model of a water catchment basin using everyday objects to create hills, mountains, valleys and water sources. They experiment to see where rain travels and collects, and survey water pathways to...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Break the Tension
Students learn about and experiment with the concept of surface tension. How can a paper clip "float" on top of water? How can a paper boat be powered by soap in water? How do water striders "walk" on top of water? Why do engineers care...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Carve That Mountain
In this activity, students further investigate major landforms (e.g., mountains, rivers, plains, hills, oceans and plateaus). They build a three-dimensional model of a landscape depicting several of these landforms. Once they have built...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Static Cling
This hands-on activity explores the concept of static electricity. Students attract an O-shaped piece of cereal to a charged comb and watch the cereal jump away when it touches the comb. Students also observe Styrofoam pellets pulling...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Charge It!
Students use a balloon to perform several simple experiments to explore static electricity and charge polarization.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Build a Charge Detector
In this hands-on activity, students explore the electrical force that takes place between two objects. Each student builds an electroscope and uses the device to draw conclusions about objects' charge intensity. Students also determine...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Two Cell Battery
In this hands-on activity, students build their own two-cell battery. They also determine which electrolyte solution is best suited for making a battery.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Will It Conduct?
Students build their own simple conductivity tester and explore whether given solid materials and solutions are good conductors of electricity.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Switcheroo
In this hands-on activity, students construct a simple switch and determine what objects and what types of materials can be used to close a switch in a circuit and light a light bulb.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Light Your Way
When there is a power failure, or when we go outside at night, we grab a flashlight so we can find our way. What happens inside a flashlight that makes the bulb light up? Why do we need a switch to turn on a flashlight? Have you ever...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Bulbs & Batteries Side by Side
We are surrounded everyday by circuits that utilize "in parallel" and "in series" circuitry. Complicated circuits designed by engineers are made of many simpler parallel and series circuits. In this hands-on activity, students build...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Stations of Light
Student groups rotate through four stations to examine light energy behavior: refraction, magnification, prisms and polarization. They see how a beam of light is refracted (bent) through various transparent mediums. While learning how a...