Students will use engineering skills to develop and use models as well as collaboratively plan an investigation to make sense of buoyancy.
This video excerpt from NOVA’s Making Stuff: Cleaner and accompanying demonstration introduce students to the production and importance of bioplastics, or plastics made from plant or animal products.
In this lesson, students learn that navigational techniques change when people travel to different places land, sea, air and in space. For example, an explorer traveling by land uses different methods of navigation than a sailor or an astronaut.
In this video segment adapted from NOVA scienceNOW, scientists discuss a family of genes called FOXO that can significantly extend life span in worms—and in humans.
This lesson introduces students to the concept of air pressure. Students will explore how air pressure creates force on an object. They will study the relationship between air pressure and the velocity of moving air.
This is an activity about classifying planetary characteristics. Learners will analyze the provided information about each planet in order to make graphs and Venn diagrams. Then, using both, learners will identify similarities and differences of the planets in the Solar System. This is Activity C-11 as part of The Universe At Your Fingertips curriculum, available for purchase.
Explore how a capacitor works! Change the size of the plates and add a dielectric to see how it affects capacitance. Change the voltage and see charges built up on the plates. Shows the electric field in the capacitor. Measure voltage and electric field.
Cardboard Automata are a playful way to explore simple machine elements while creating a mechanical sculpture. This activity was inspired by the Cabaret Mechanical Theatre, a group of automata builders based in England. Artists like Paul Spooner, Keith Newstead, and Carlos Zapata build beautiful narrative pieces using elegant mechanisms based on cams, gears, springs, and linkages. Working with simple materials, this activity is easy to get started, and may become as complex as your mechanical sculpture ideas.
Students will collaboratively design and construct a cardboard boat using a variety of tools and methods which will float and hold 1 human in the school pool.
Students will collaboratively design and construct a cardboard boat using a variety of tools and methods which will float and hold 1 human in the school pool.
Students will collaboratively design and construct a cardboard boat using a variety of tools and methods which will float and hold 1 human in the school pool.
Students are introduced to the "Walk the Line" challenge question. They write journal responses to the question and brainstorm what information they need to answer the question. Ideas are shared with the class (or in pairs and then to the class, if class size is large). Then students read an interview with an engineer to gain a professional perspective on linear data sets and best-fit lines. Students brainstorm for additional ideas and add them to the list. With the teacher's guidance, students organize the ideas into logical categories of needed knowledge.
Students teams use a laparoscopic surgical trainer to perform simple laparoscopic surgery tasks (dissections, sutures) using laparoscopic tools. Just like in the operating room, where the purpose is to perform surgery carefully and quickly to minimize patient trauma, students' surgery time and mistakes are observed and recorded to quantify their performances. They learn about the engineering component of surgery.
Learn about the Chandra X-Ray Observatory's telescope system, science instruments, and spacecraft system in this interactive activity adapted from NASA.
This activity examines the characteristics of light. Students demonstrate that light travels straight and does not bend around an object.
Move point charges around on the playing field and then view the electric field, voltages, equipotential lines, and more. It's colorful, it's dynamic, it's free.
Similar to how Charlotte uses her web to communicate, students create webs for short messages. They learn how spiders create their webs, and about the different types of webs they make. With this knowledge, students design and create their own webs and incorporate messages.
Chemistry is the scientific study of matter and its interaction with other matter and with energy. It is the branch of natural science that deals with the composition of substances and their properties and reactions.
Working in engineering project teams, students evaluate sites for the construction of a pyramid. They base their decision on site features as provided by a surveyor's report; distance from the quarry, river and palace; and other factors they deem important to the project based on their team's values and priorities.
This new version of the CCK adds capacitors, inductors and AC voltage sources to your toolbox! Now you can graph the current and voltage as a function of time.