Students learn about the human water cycle, or how humans impact the water cycle by settling down in civilizations. Specifically, they learn how people obtain, use and dispose of water. Students also learn about shortages of treated, clean and safe water and learn about ways that engineers address this issue through water conservation and graywater recycling.

Students learn what causes hurricanes and what engineers do to help protect people from destruction caused by hurricane winds and rain. Research and data collection vessels allow for scientists and engineers to model and predict weather patterns and provide forecasts and storm warnings to the public. Engineers are also involved in the design and building of flood-prevention systems, such as levees and floodwalls. During the 2005 hurricane season, levees failed in the greater New Orleans area, contributing to the vast flooding and destruction of the historic city. In the associated activity, students learn how levees work, and they build their own levees and put them to the test!

Students capture and examine air particles to gain an appreciation of how much dust, pollen and other particulate matter is present in the air around them. Students place "pollution detectors" at various locations to determine which places have a lot of particles in the air and which places do not have as many. Quantifying and describing these particles is a first step towards engineering methods of removing contaminants from the air.

Students develop an understanding of air pressure by using candy or cookie wafers to model how it changes with altitude, by comparing its magnitude to gravitational force per unit area, and by observing its magnitude with an aluminum can crushing experiment.

Students develop their understanding of the effects of invisible air pollutants with a rubber band air test, a bean plant experiment and by exploring engineering roles related to air pollution. In an associated literacy activity, students develop visual literacy and write photograph captions. They learn how images are manipulated for a powerful effect and how a photograph can make the invisible (such as pollutants) visible. Note: You may want to set up the activities for Air Pollution unit, Lessons 2 and 3, simultaneously as they require extended data collection time and can share collection sites.

In this activity, students will simulate the equal and unequal distribution of our renewable resources. Also, they will consider the impact of our increasing population upon these resources and how engineers develop technologies to create resources.

Students examine how the power output of a photovoltaic (PV) solar panel is affected by temperature changes. Using a 100-watt lamp and a small PV panel connected to a digital multimeter, teams vary the temperature of the panel and record the resulting voltage output. They plot the panel's power output and calculate the panel's temperature coefficient.

In this role-playing activity, students learn how cellular phone service works, its advantages and its limitations. Students also learn about the advantages and limitations of satellite phone service. Phone communication involves many aspects of science, math and engineering, and this activity conveys to students how these technologies help people to stay better connected. Students use what they learn to understand what communication options might be available for Maya and her parents, Spacewoman Tess and Spaceman Rohan.

Students learn about material balances, a fundamental concept of chemical engineering. They use stoichiometry to predict the mass of carbon dioxide that escapes after reacting measured quantities of sodium bicarbonate with dilute acetic acid. Students then produce the reactions of the chemicals in a small reactor made from a plastic water bottle and balloon.

Students use scaling from real-world data to obtain an idea of the immense size of Mars in relation to the Earth and the Moon, as well as the distances between them. Students calculate dimensions of the scaled versions of the planets, and then use balloons to represent their relative sizes and locations.

Students are introduced to the concept of an environment and the interactions within it through written and hands-on webbing activities. They also learn about environmental engineering careers and the roles of these engineers in our society.

While building and testing model rockets fueled by antacid tablets, students are introduced to the basic physics concepts on how rockets work. Students revise and improve their initial designs. Note: This activity is similar to the elementary-level film canister rockets activity, but adapted for middle school students.

Through an overview of some of the environmental challenges facing the growing and evolving country of China today, students learn about the effects of indoor and outdoor air pollution that China is struggling to curb with the help of engineers and scientists. This includes the sources of particulate matter 2.5 and carbon dioxide, and air pollution impacts on the health of people and the environment.

The goal of this activity is to understand how techniques of persuasion (including background, supporting evidence, storytelling and the call to action) are used to develop an argument for or against a topic. Students develop an environmental case study for presentation and understand how a case study is used as an analysis tool.

Students will brainstorm ways that they use and waste natural resources. Also, they will respond to some facts about population growth and how people use petroleum. Lastly, students will consider the different ways that engineers interact with and use our natural resources.

In this activity, students will conduct a survey to identify the environmental issues (in their community, their country and the world) for which people are concerned. They will tally and graph the results. Also, students will discuss how surveys are important when engineers make decisions about environmental issues.

In this activity, students will learn to identify different opinions related to an issue as well as the things (information, values and beliefs) that influence those opinions. They will use an opinion spectrum to analyze the range of opinions in their classroom on environmental issues and understand how these spectrums can be valuable to engineering design.

In this activity, students learn how to prevent exposure to the Sun's harmful ultraviolet rays. Students will systematically test various sunscreens to determine the relationship between spf (sun protection factor) value and sun exposure. At the end of the activity, students are asked to consider how this investigation could be used to help them design a new sunscreen.

Students explore the theme of conflict in literature. They learn the difference between internal and external conflict and various types of conflicts, including self against self, self against other, and self against nature or machine. Stories are used to discuss methods of managing and resolving conflict and interpersonal friction. Note: The literacy activities for the Mechanics unit are based on physical themes that have broad application to our experience in the world — concepts of rhythm, balance, spin, gravity, levity, inertia, momentum, friction, stress and tension.

In past times, ocean navigators tossed a piece of wood over the side of their ships and noted how long until the ship passed the wood. They used this time measurement and the length of the ship to calculate their speed and estimate how far they had traveled. In this activity, students act the part of a GPS signal traveling to the receiver to learn how travel time is converted to distance.