Teach Engineering
Organic Solar Energy and Berries
You can eat a solar cell? A unit on solar energy begins with a discussion about organic solar cells, followed by directions on how to build your own. After following the teacher's directions to build an anthocyanin dye-sensitized solar...
Teach Engineering
Fun with Air-Powered Pneumatics
How high did the ball go? Engineering teams build a working pneumatic system that launches a ball into the air. The teams vary the amount of pressure and determine the accompanying height of the ball. An extension of building a device to...
Teach Engineering
Design Step 3: Brainstorm Possible Solutions
Our young scientists have now specifically identified a problem, and this step helps them think of possible solutions. An outline, including guidelines, for brainstorming helps scholars stay on the right path. The resource includes...
Teach Engineering
Design Step 4: Engineering Analysis
What is the main difference between an engineer and a technician? This is one of the driving questions in a plan that proves that analysis at every step of development is crucial to the engineering design process. The instructional...
Teach Engineering
Design Step 2: Research the Problem
How do you get started designing a product to meet your engineering design goals? Here, learners gain understanding of an important aspect of the engineering design process: background research. Through brainstorming and worksheets,...
Teach Engineering
Design Step 1: Identify the Need
What exactly does an engineer do? Learners find out through a lesson that asks them to solve a problem that affects a target population. Aspiring engineers learn the steps of the engineering design process as they apply it to a challenge...
Disney
Renewable Energy
Bring some energy to your physical science curriculum with this engaging Bill Nye the Science Guy instructional activity. Based on his Renewable Energy video, young scholars explore the concepts of potential and kinetic energy and learn...
IOP Institute of Physics
Physics in Concert
What do physicists and musicians have in common? A lot more than you might think. After first viewing a slide show presentation and completing a series of skills practice worksheets on the physics of light, sound, and electricity, young...
Trash For Teaching
The Light-House Project
Groups work together to design a lighthouse, from designing and drawing the wiring diagram, to creating prototypes of the switch and circuit, to envisioning and building a scale model along with a blueprint. By including different...
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Working with Wind Energy
After reading about how wind turbines work to collect clean energy, groups brainstorm and design their own windmill. Within the provided financial and physical constraints, groups must build a working windmill using only the materials...
Carnegie Mellon University
Renewables Workshop
Youngsters examine resource maps to find out which states are using solar and wind power and discuss as a class various other renewable energy sources. They use a provided data table to record pros and cons to each technology, build and...
Wind Wise Education
Can Wind Power Your Classroom?
Can you power this? Individuals do an energy audit for the classroom to determine the amount of electricity needed to power it. Using either live data or sample data from wind turbines they decide whether it would power the classroom....
Wind Wise Education
Understanding Electric Power Generation
You mean the electricity does not come from the switch? As a class and in small groups, learners explore the sources of energy used to generate electric power. Worksheets guide groups into choosing a future electricity generating...
Carnegie Mellon University
How Power Plants Work 3
Double, double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble! Find out what drives a turbine to generate electricity and whether or not it has an impact on the environment. A discussion and lecture is divided by a hands-on activity in...
Carnegie Mellon University
Battery Workshop
Introduce your class to the workings and parts of a battery-operated circuit. Pairs of pupils use lemons to make batteries and measure voltage and current with a multimeter. An accompanying worksheet is used for recording values and...