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Just Passing Through
Students examine the functions of the kidney and its place in the urinary system. They discuss how astronauts go the bathroom in space, examine labeled diagrams of the urinary system, and draw a large scale drawing of the excretory...
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The No Zone of Ozone
Young scholars explore the causes and effects of the Earth's ozone holes through discussion and an interactive simulation. Using gumdrops and toothpicks, they conduct a large-group, interactive ozone depletion model.
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The Need For Shelter
Fifth graders build a shelter to protect themselves from rain. They perform durability and water proof testing on the shelters. They make observations of plants found in the Amazon rainforest.
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Who's Down the Well?
Learners identify several sources of contaminants to groundwater. They discuss the movement of possible contaminants through that groundwater from outside sources. They describe how environmental engineers analyze contaminants to...
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Acid Attack
Learners explore the effect of chemical erosion on statues and monuments. They use chalk to see what happens when limestone is placed in liquids with different pH values. They also discover several things that engineers are doing to...
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Disassemble a Click Pen
Students dissamble and analyze the spring system of a click pen. They analyze a cross-section worksheet, dissamble the pens, fill in the missing parts of the cross-section diagram, and write a description of how the pen works.
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Eek, It leaks!
Middle schoolers 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 represents similar challenges...
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From Lake to Tap
Middle schoolers use the Internet to study how water is treated to make it safe to drink. They use a tutorial on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's website to gain this information. They complete a worksheet for the assessment...
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How Full is Full?
Young scholars examine porosity and permeability and relate these concepts to groundwater flow. They use simple materials to conduct a porosity experiment and use the information to understand how environmental engineers decide on the...
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TE Activity: Pitch and Frequency
Students experiment with a vibrating ruler and a kazoo to study the different pitches and frequencies they produce. They create both high and low pitch sound waves. They examine how engineers use sound energy when designing electronic...
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TE Activity: The Great Divide
Students simulate the distribution of nonrenewable energy resources using cookies. They determine how the world's growing population effects the equitable distribution of these resources. They look at how engineers work to develop...
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TE Activity: The Trouble with Topos
Young scholars study the uses of topographical maps including the many forms that they take. They discover that the map features show its intended use such as city maps, wilderness maps, and state maps. They complete a worksheet in which...
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The Search for Secret Agents
Students embark on a scavenger hunt around the school looking for indoor air pollution and mapping source locations. They predict and observe sources of indoor air pollution, understand and give examples of technologies we use related to...
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TE Activity: Testing Fundamental Loads
Middle schoolers experiment with the five fundamental load types that can act on structures. They use foam insulation blocks to which they apply the forces and draw the fracture patterns. They determine the telltale marks of failure that...
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Tower Investigation and the Egg
Students build three types of towers, engineering them to hold an egg one foot high for 15 seconds. They discover that engineering designs are subject to constraints such as time, money and size specifications. In this activity students...
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What Trickles Down?
Students explore different levels of permeability and compare the permeabilities of several different materials. They are introduced to the basic concepts of building design, landscape architecture, and environmental pollutant transport....
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Wind Chimes
Students construct wind chimes using physics. In small groups they design and create wind chimes using a specific weights, number of notes, and keeping the cost under ten dollars.
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Wire Maze
Pupils investigate what causes electrical circuits to work. They construct a wire circuit and pass a paperclip through the maze, trying not to touch the wire, and answer discussion questions.
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Can Anyone Be a Leader?
Students explore the concept of leadership and identify leaders from the past and present. They brainstorm qualities of effective leaders, research a leader from the past and develop a presentation on their findings and choose a local...
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Making Ice Cream
Student examine the physical changes of matter and are able to describe them. They make ice cream in plastic bags to observe the changes in matter. They describe and record the changes in the ice cream mixture as it freezes.
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Kindergarten Social Studies Lesson 4
Students examine the lives of children in other places. They listen to a read aloud of Eve Bunting's, Dandelions, and retell the story of the family living in the West. They talk about the sod houses and compare them to the types of...
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Creating a Website on Explorers
Students identify and research famous European explorers using a variety of sources. They compare and contrast the explorers drawing conlusions about the importance of each explorer. They design a web page on one explorer of their choice.
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Can You Bear It? Pulleys, Gears, Forces, Structures and Mechanisms
Students review the types of simple machines. As a class, they focus on the positives and negatives of pulleys and gears and identify what pulleys and gears change of an object. They work together to design their own object to support a...
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When Disaster Strikes! Rocks, Minerals, Erosion and Weather
Students pretend the area they live in is subject to wind, waves and rain. In groups, they pretend they are a groups of meteorologists or geologists and are to report on the weather and damage that could occur there. Each group develops...