TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Bouncing Balls (For High School)
In this activity, students examine how different balls react when colliding with different surfaces. Also, they will have plenty of opportunity to learn how to calculate momentum and understand the principle of conservation of momentum.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Sliders
In this hands-on activity, students learn about two types of friction - static and kinetic - and the equation that governs them. They also measure the coefficient of static friction experimentally.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Sliders (For High School)
In this hands-on activity, students learn about two types of friction - static and kinetic - and the equation that governs them. They also measure the coefficient of static friction and the coefficient of kinetic friction experimentally.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Ramp and Review
In this hands-on activity - rolling a ball down an incline and having it collide into a cup - the concepts of mechanical energy, work and power, momentum, and friction are all demonstrated. During the activity, students take measurements...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Ramp and Review (For High School)
In this hands-on activity - rolling a ball down an incline and having it collide into a cup - the concepts of mechanical energy, work and power, momentum, and friction are all demonstrated. During the activity, students take measurements...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: What Is Energy? Short Demos
Three short, hands-on, in-class demos expand students' understand of energy. First, using peanuts and heat, students see how the human body burns food to make energy. Then, students create paper snake mobiles to explore how heat energy...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Energy Detectives at Work
Students search for clues of energy around them. They use what they find to create their own definition of energy. They also relate their energy clues to the engineering products they encounter every day.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Wasting Energy at Home
People use energy in all aspects of their lives - for cooking, lighting and entertainment. Much of this energy use takes place in buildings, such as our homes. To save money and reduce the impact on our environment, many people are...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Stop Heat From Escaping
One way to conserve energy in a building is to use adequate insulation. Insulation helps keep the hot or cool air inside or outside of a building. Inefficient heating and cooling of buildings is a leading residential and industrial...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Greenewables
Students form expert engineering teams working for the (fictional) alternative energy consulting firm, Greenewables, Inc. Each team specializes in a form of renewable energy used to generate electrical power: passive solar, solar...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: The Path of Electrons
Students engage in an interactive "hot potato" demonstration to gain an appreciation for the flow of electrons through a circuit. Students role play the different parts of a simple circuit and send small items representing electrons...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Blackout!
Students read news reports and first-person accounts to imagine what it would be like to be in a blackout in a large city. They follow news reports as if the event were unfolding in real-time and keep weblogs or journals of their...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Seeing and Feeling Sound Vibrations
Students examine the existence of sound by listening to and seeing sound waves while conducting a set of simple activities as a class or in pairs at stations. Students describe sound in terms of its pitch, volume and frequency. They use...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Traveling Sound
Students explore how sound waves move through liquids, solids and gases in a series of simple sound energy experiments. Understanding the properties of sound and how sound waves travel helps engineers determine the best room shape and...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Pitch and Frequency
To further their understanding of sound energy, students identify the different pitches and frequencies created by a vibrating ruler and a straw kazoo. They create high- and low-pitch sound waves.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: How Much Heat Will It Hold?
Students relate thermal energy to heat capacity by comparing the heat capacities of different materials and graphing the change in temperature over time for a specific material. Students learn why heat capacity is an important property...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Wind Power!
Students learn how engineers transform wind energy into electrical energy by building their own miniature wind turbines and measuring the electrical current it produces. They explore how design and position affect the electrical energy...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Pea Soup Ponds
In this activity, students will learn how water can be polluted by algal blooms. They will grow algae with different concentrations of fertilizer or nutrients and analyze their results as environmental engineers working to protect a...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Stream Consciousness
During this activity, students will learn how environmental engineers monitor water quality in resource use and design. They will employ environmental indicators to assess the water quality of a nearby stream. Students will make general...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Where Does All the Water Go?
The best way for students to understand how groundwater flows is to actually see it. In this activity, students will learn the vocabulary associated with groundwater and see a demonstration of groundwater flow. Students will learn about...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: How Full Is Full?
During this activity, students will learn about porosity and permeability and relate these concepts to groundwater flow. Students will use simple materials to conduct a porosity experiment and use the information to understand how...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: What's Down the Well?
This activity looks at physical models of groundwater and how environmental engineers determine possible sites for drinking water wells. During this activity, students will create their own groundwater well model using a coffee can and...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Eek, It Leaks!
During this activity, students will try to construct model landfill liners out of two-inch strips of garbage bags within resource constraints. The challenge is to construct a bag that will hold one cup of water without leaking. This...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Straining Out the Dirt
In this activity, students build a water filter with activated carbon, cotton and other materials to remove chocolate powder from water.