Curated OER
Engineering For The 3 Little Pigs
Learners engage in a lesson plan which demonstrates 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...
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Turning the Air Upside Down
Students analyze how engineers study temperature inversions and convection currents to understand why pollution levels may be higher in some areas than others. They participate in an experiment that allows them to build simple models to...
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Geoboard Area
Young scholars explore the basic geometric shapes and geometric shape vocabulary through the use of geoboards and virtual geoboards. They create a variety of shapes with a partner, build ten different rectangles on their geoboards, and...
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Electrical Generators
Learners study what an electric generator does and its history. In this energy instructional activity students complete several experiments including building their own electric generator.
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Hey Kid, Want To Buy A Bridge?
Students study the building of the Brooklyn Bridge and the inventions of Thomas Alva Edison. They design an infomercial to sell a product or a service for an invention. They create an invention that improves the world and write an...
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Let the Sun Shine!
Students investigate how the sun can be used for energy. They read a handout, discuss the pros and cons of passive solar building design, develop flashcard questions, and identify jobs that can be helped by solar energy.
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Good News - We're on the Rise!
Students build and observe a simple aneroid barometer to discover changes in barometric pressure and weather forecasting. They graph changes in barometric pressure for two weeks and make weather predictions.
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Suspension Bridge
Students view a video clip about suspension bridges. They discover what forces support this type of bridge. They build their own suspension bridge using classroom materials.
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A "Capital" Idea
Eighth graders prepare for a field trip to Washington, DC by researching landmark, monument, or building in Washington. They use the information in small groups to design a multimedia presentation. They include a spreadsheet that shows...
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Rocket Me into Space
Learners engage in a lesson that reinforces rockets as a vehicle that helps us explore outside the Earth's atmosphere by using the principles of Newton's third law of motion. Also, the principles that engineers deal with when building a...
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Wind Power
Fourth graders develop an understanding of how engineers use wind to generate electricity. They will build a model anemometer to better understand and measure wind speed. They discover that engineers design wind turbines that generate...
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Grade 5: Multiple Towers
Fifth graders use interlocking cubes to build towers to represent factors of numbers and place the towers in the appropriate places on a Tower chart in order to look for patterns. They work in partner groups, and finish by writing...
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Robots All Around Us
Student work in design teams to research robots, create a drawing of a robot they want to make, build a prototype of their robot, present their prototype and research, and write a descriptive paragraph about their creation.
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Go For the Gold!
Students are introduced to the history of Greece and the Olympic Games and then research the history and sports in order to write a research paper. They make connections between the 2004 Olympics and the past Olympic Games and interpret...
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Lego Robotics: Measuring Speed
Students build and program a LEGO robotic car as well as measure and graph its speed. They acquire familiarity with principles of construction, motion, design and problem solving. They compare a robot's speed over two different surfaces...
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Aquifers and Groundwater
Students understand the purpose of an aquifer. In this aquifer and groundwater activity, students build a model aquifer find its relationship to water usage. Students record observations as they build the layers of the aquifer.
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The Cask of Amontillado
Students examine the Edgar Allan Poe story "The Cask of Amontillado." In this character lesson, students discuss and analyze the characters in the story. Students make personal connections to the characters and create a brochure...
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Track the Path of Coffee From Farm to Store Shelf
Students investigate the cultivation and marketing of coffee. In this global studies lesson, students consider the connections of the 21st century world as they explore how coffee makes it from farms to their homes. Students consider the...
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Governance
Third graders participate in decision-making situations. In this social studies instructional activity students make connections between rules and laws and the purposes for those rules and laws. Students use critical and creative...
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Social Studies, Music, The Blues, Urbanization, and Technology
Enable students to use the blues to explore urbanization, technology, and their effects on everyday life in the 20th century. Musicians were among the large number of people who, between 1914 and 1945, participated in the Great Migration...
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Language with Linguistic Legos
Middle schoolers visualize and manipulate sentences as building blocks, and, given a key, use Legos™ to demonstrate how to construct sentences of variety (simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex).
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Relative Ratios
Learners discover that proportions are made up of equal ratios each containing the same building blocks. They, using the Internet, apply their knowledge of direct relationships and proportions to problems in planetary science.
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Robot Gears
Young scholars build simple gear trains and record data to discover how to compute gear ratios. They investigate the definition of torque and how torque can be increased or decreased in a gear train.
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Legends of Airpower: Aviation-Then, Now and Here
Students examine the advancements made in aviation during and since WWII. They read an interview with Charles McGee, research a plane, build a model of a plane, and develop a Powerpoint presentation about aircraft.