Curated OER
Skateboard Disaster
Learners conduct a hands-on experiment with collisions between two skateboards of different masses. They are introduced to the concept of conservation of momentum in collisions and consider how their observations might help engineers...
Curated OER
Leaving on A Jet Plane
Young scholars create an airplane by listening to directions. They also to measure the pieces for the airplane and compare and contrast their test flights.
Curated OER
The Crash Scene
Fifth graders explore geography by participating in a mapping activity. In this engineering lesson plan, 5th graders identify the differences between latitude and longitude and practice locating precise points on a globe or map. Students...
Curated OER
Telling Time
Young learners participate in activities which help them understand analog clocks, and the vocabulary of telling time. They examine the values of the intervals of minutes and hours by making a human clock.
Curated OER
How Long is a Hot Dog? Weight, Weight! Don't tell me!
Primary learners participate in activities that help them explain how different things are measured. They create their own access number chart.
Curated OER
Investigation - Peg Race
Students explore time by comparing the duration of an egg timer with how many pegs they can put in a pegboard. They experience one on one correspondence, as they place a peg in the whole. Students discover estimation of time and number...
Curated OER
A House is a House for Me
Young scholars evaluate the impact climates have on the building of structures. They research the different types of materials used to build houses in various climates and build small models of houses which are tested against different...
Pala Software
MathBoard
Do you want to practice arithmetic skills from simple addition facts, to cubes and square roots, to solving one-step equations? Here is a great app for practicing and learning everything from arithmetic practice using integers to solving...
Teach Engineering
Racing With the Sun - Creating a Solar Car
Here's an exciting and innovative lesson that's sure to get your charges fired up! In it, they use engineering design principles to construct and test a fully solar powered car. One caveat: the kits that each group needs to make their...
Curated OER
Everything was Up to Date in 1628
Students examine the life and lifestyles of New England colonists in the year 1628, and then investigate what life was like in their own area during the same time period. They watch segments from the PBS hands-on history series COLONIAL...
Curated OER
Fuel Mystery Dis-Solved
Students describe how temperature and surface area exposure affect the rate at which fuel is consumed. They explain why engineers want to know about the properties of a fuel when designing rockets. They create a bar graph of result data.
Curated OER
Customary Measurement Conversions
Fifth graders discover in hands-on activities the relationships between the measures. They work in groups to create conversion tables using familiar measuring tools. Students solve problems requiring conversions.
Curated OER
Daily Time Ratios
Young scholars track and record how much time they spend on each activity. In this spreadsheet lesson, students apply different functions using Microsoft excel to format cells and calculate the sum of their total time spent each day....
Curated OER
New Boxes From Old
Students find the volume and surface area of a rectangular box (e.g., a cereal box), and then figure out how to convert that box into a new, cubical box having the same volume as the original. As they construct the new, cube-shaped box...
Curated OER
How Many Penguins Does It Take? Studying Carrying Capacity and Limiting Factors
How does a population's habitat determine the size of that population? Teach learners about carrying capacity and limiting factors with an engaging roleplay activity. Class members pose as a colony of penguins who must gather food amidst...
Curated OER
Hunter Fred's Quest for Dinner
Learners solve problems using trigonometric functions, specifically a problem about a tree stand. Pupils try to maximize the distance of hunting sight given certain restrictions. They use the Pythagorean Theorem, sine, cosine, and...
Curated OER
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...
Curated OER
Electricity: Will It Conduct?
Students build conductivity testers and investigate which solids and solutions conduct electricity. Working in groups, they predict which items will conduct electricity and record their answers on worksheets.
Curated OER
Swing in Time
Students examine the motion of pendulums and come to understand that the longer the string of the pendulum, the fewer the number of swings in a given time interval. They see that changing the weight on the pendulum does not have an...
Curated OER
Exploring the Exponential Function
Learners collect and analyze data regarding exponential functions of the form y = abx. Students explore the affects of changing parameters on the graph of the function.
Curated OER
Heredity Mix 'n Match
Students randomly select jelly beans that represent genes for several human traits such as tongue-rolling ability and eye color. Then, working in pairs (preferably of mixed gender), students randomly choose new pairs of jelly beans from...
Teach Engineering
Aerogels in Action
Model an oil spill cleanup. An engaging engineering lesson has groups using aerogels to simulate an oil spill cleanup (vegetable oil in water). Along the way, they learn about nanotechnology and hydrophilia/hydrophobia.
Teach Engineering
Can You Resist This?
Some things are hard to resist. Small collaborative groups build circuits and calculate the voltage using Ohm's Law. Budding engineers explore the connection between the voltage across different resistors and linear functions with...
Teach Engineering
Efficiency of a Water Heating System
Tired of waiting for hot water? Groups of three determine the efficiency of an electric water-heating device. They calculate the amount of energy it takes to heat the water and the theoretical amount of energy required to heat the water....