This activity is a hands-on building of atoms of elements 1-20.
This is a great lab that walks students through interactive labs that include Forces, Loads, Materials and Shapes and how they affect the way we design and build structures. Pairs really nicely with any design and build lab assignments like Bridges, Cranes, etc.
This classroom activity where students physically show where the forces are in an arch.
All living beings are made up of cells. Some of them are made up of only one cell and others have many cells. Also in: Dutch | French | Hungarian | Spanish
Students construct sets of numbers up to 10, write the numerals up to 10, and count up to 10 rationally. They use ten frames and also make bean sticks.
I used this lesson to first build my students understanding of working up to 10. However, I knew they knew how to make 10, so to adjust this particular lesson, I then built on from this lesson. We used the strategy of counting on to work into teen numbers (designing the concept of ten and extra ones). This lesson mat with the fingers was great because kids could make their ten with the hands, but then also see the extra ones. I would only use this to make combinations up to 10, build the concepts of a group of ten and some extra ones, and counting on. I did not use the numeral cards as we were more focused on counting out groups of numbers, counting on from that group, building a ten, and seeing extra ones.
Students identify different bridge designs and construction materials used in modern day engineering. They work in construction teams to create paper bridges and spaghetti bridges based on existing bridge designs. Students progressively realize the importance of the structural elements in each bridge. They also measure vertical displacements under the center of the spaghetti bridge span when a load is applied. Vertical deflection is measured using a LEGO MINDSTORMS(TM) NXT intelligent brick and ultrasonic sensor. As they work, students experience tension and compression forces acting on structural elements of the two bridge prototypes. In conclusion, students discuss the material properties of paper and spaghetti and compare bridge designs with performance outcomes.
Students build their own small-scale model roller coasters using pipe insulation and marbles, and then analyze them using physics principles learned in the associated lesson. They examine conversions between kinetic and potential energy and frictional effects to design roller coasters that are completely driven by gravity. A class competition using different marbles types to represent different passenger loads determines the most innovative and successful roller coasters.
Working in teams of four, students build tetrahedral kites following specific instructions and using specific materials. They use the basic processes of manufacturing systems – cutting, shaping, forming, conditioning, assembling, joining, finishing, and quality control – to manufacture complete tetrahedral kites within a given time frame. Project evaluation takes into account team efficiency and the quality of the finished product.
Students investigate the weather from a systems approach, learning how individual parts of a system work together to create a final product. Students learn how a barometer works to measure the Earth's air pressure by building a model using simple materials. Students analyze the changes in barometer measurements over time and compare those to actual weather conditions. They learn how to use a barometer to understand air pressure and predict actual weather changes.
This resource is useful as a kinesthetic activity to reinforce the content on nucleic acids. Students can create a model that shows the three dimensional aspect of DNA and understand the helix shaped molecule and its components.
Students create and decorate their own spectrographs using simple materials and holographic diffraction gratings. A holographic diffraction grating acts like a prism, showing the visual components of light. After building the spectrographs, students observe the spectra of different light sources as homework.
This task is for instructional purposes only and builds on ``Building an explicit quadratic function.''
Students learn how to build simple piezoelectric generators to power LEDs. To do this, they incorporate into a circuit a piezoelectric element that converts movements they make (mechanical energy) into electrical energy, which is stored in a capacitor (short-term battery). Once enough energy is stored, they flip a switch to light up an LED. Students also learn how much (surprisingly little) energy can be converted using the current state of technology for piezoelectric materials.
This is a hands-on activity to assess the students understanding of peptide and disulfide bonds formed during protein synthesis. Students demonstrate the process of dehydration synthesis by combining amino acids through peptide bonds creating molecules of water, and one protein amino acid strand. It can also be used to assess students understanding of the process of translation.
This is the first of a series of task aiming at understanding the quadratic formula in a geometric way in terms of the graph of a quadratic function.
Students create and analyze composite materials with the intent of using the materials to construct a structure with optimal strength and minimal density. The composite materials are made of puffed rice cereal, marshmallows and chocolate chips. Student teams vary the concentrations of the three components to create their composite materials. They determine the material density and test its compressive strength by placing weights on it and measuring how much the material compresses. Students graph stress vs. strain and determine Young's modulus to analyze the strength of their materials.
This task applies reflections to a regular hexagon to construct a pattern of six hexagons enclosing a seventh: the focus of the task is on using the properties of reflections to deduce this seven hexagon pattern.
This task applies reflections to a regular octagon to construct a pattern of four octagons enclosing a quadrilateral: the focus of the task is on using the properties of reflections to deduce that the quadrilateral is actually a square.
Undergraduate student project for building datasets and analyzing the electoral, party system, and mass behavioral characteristics for a set of countries.
Students construct electromagnets and determine that the more winds of wire coil around the core will increase the strength of the electromagnet.