BioEd Online
Bio Ed Online: Design and Engineering Process
In this series of lessons learners employ an engineer's approach to solve problems and conduct a variety of hands-on activities. They use this strategy to identify the problem, brainstorm a solution, design a plan, build an object and...
BioEd Online
Bio Ed Online: Rockets
For this series of lessons students will learn about engineering and design principles by designing, building, launching, testing and redesigning their own rockets.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: What to Bring?
In this activity, students are provided with a list of supplies that survived their plane's crash in the Amazon jungle. They will organize the supplies to classify which items are useful for surviving in the Amazon. Students will use...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Design Step 1: Identify the Need
Students practice the initial steps involved in an engineering design challenge. They begin by reviewing the steps of the engineering design loop and discussing the client need for the project. Next, they identify a relevant context,...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Design Step 2: Research the Problem
Through Internet research, patent research, standards and codes research, user interviews (if possible) and other techniques (idea web, reverse engineering), students further develop the context for their design challenge. In subsequent...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Design Step 3: Brainstorm Possible Solutions
Brainstorming is a team creativity activity that helps generate a large number of potential solutions to a problem. In this activity, students participate in a group brainstorming activity to generate possible solutions to their...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Design Step 4: Engineering Analysis
Engineering analysis distinguishes true engineering design from "tinkering." In this activity, students are guided through an example engineering analysis scenario for a scooter. Then they perform a similar analysis on the design...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Design Steps 5 and 6: Create and Test a Prototype
Students learn about the importance of creating and testing prototypes during the engineering design process. They start by building prototypes, which is a special type of model used to test new design ideas. Students gain experience...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Design Step 7: Improve and Redesign/manufacture a Product
As students learn more about the manufacturing process, they use what they learned from testing their designs in the previous activity to continue to improve and redesign. Students also have the opportunity to manufacture their final...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: The Universal Language of Engineering Drawings
Students practice the ability to produce clear, complete, accurate and detailed design drawings through an engineering design challenge. Using only the specified materials, teams are challenged to draw a design for a wind-powered car....
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Design Inspired by Nature
Students discover how engineers can use biomimicry to enhance their designs. They learn how careful observation of nature can lead to new innovations and products. In this activity, students reverse engineer a flower to glean design...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Temperature Tells All!
Students are introduced to the health risks caused by cooking and heating with inefficient cook stoves inside homes, a common practice in rural developing communities. Students simulate the cook stove scenario and use the engineering...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Boom Construction
Student teams design their own booms (bridges) and engage in a friendly competition with other teams to test their designs. Each team strives to design a boom that is light, can hold a certain amount of weight, and is affordable to...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: At the Doctor's
In this simulation of a doctor's office, students play the roles of physician, nurse, patients, and time-keeper, with the objective to improve the patient waiting time. They collect and graph data as part of their analysis. This serves...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Keepers of the Gate Journal and Brainstorm
Students journal their thoughts and responses to the questions associated with the grand challenge question presented in the associated lesson. For the Generate Ideas" step, they answer the questions: "What are your initial ideas about...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: The Mummified Troll: Devising a Protection Plan
Students are introduced to the parameters of an engineering challenge in which their principal has asked them to devise an invisible security system to cost-effectively protect a treasured mummified troll, while still allowing for...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Off Road Wheelchair Challenge
Students further their understanding of the engineering design process (EDP) while being introduced to assistive technology devices and biomedical engineering. They are given a fictional client statement and are tasked to follow the...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Portable Wheelchair Ramp Challenge
Students follow the steps of the engineering design process while learning more about assistive devices and biomedical engineering applied to basic structural engineering concepts. Their engineering challenge is to design, build and test...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Automatic Floor Cleaner Computer Program Challenge
Students learn more about assistive devices, specifically biomedical engineering applied to computer engineering concepts, with an engineering challenge to create an automatic floor cleaner computer program. Following the steps of the...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Penny Perfect Properties (Solid Liquid Interactions)
Students investigate the property dependence between liquid and solid interfaces and determine observable differences in how liquids react to different solid surfaces. They compare copper pennies and plastic "coins" as the two test...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Biodomes
Students explore the biosphere's environments and ecosystems, learning along the way about the plants, animals, resources and natural cycles of our planet. Over the course of lessons 2-6, students use their growing understanding of...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Creative Engineering Design
Students are introduced to the world of creative engineering product design. Through six activities, teams work through the steps of the engineering design process (or loop) by completing an actual design challenge presented in six...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Hybrid Vehicle Design Challenge
This module is written for a first-year algebra-based physics class, though it could easily be modified for conceptual physics. It is intended to provide hands-on activities to teach the overarching concept of energy, as it relates to...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Laser Light Properties: Protecting the Mummified Troll!
Students learn and use the properties of light to solve the following challenge: "A mummified troll was discovered this summer at our school and it has generated lots of interest worldwide. The principal asked us, the technology classes,...