Teach Engineering
Understanding the Air through Data Analysis
Is there a correlation or causation relationship between air pollutants? Groups develop a hypothesis about the daily variation of air pollutants, specifically ozone and CO2. Using Excel to analyze the data, the groups evaluate their...
Teach Engineering
Linking Sources and Pollutants
Class members use an air quality monitor to measure the amount of gas-phase pollutants emitted by different sources. Groups choose three different sources and make predictions about what the monitors will detect. Teams then expose the...
Teach Engineering
Ranking the Rocks for Desired Properties
Math rocks! Cavern design teams determine the rankings of rock types based upon desirability points. The points are connected to the properties of the rocks and their usefulness in building a cavern.
Teach Engineering
Rocks, Rocks, Rocks: Test, Identify Properties and Classify
Time is growing short. Teams work together to identify physical properties of rocks in order to determine the properties that would best suit their cavern shelter design.
Teach Engineering
Identifying Possible Underground Cavern Locations
Teams continue with the Asteroid Impact challenge and determine possible locations to construct their underground shelters. Participants cut scale area models of their shelters from paper and place them on the map to find locations to...
Teach Engineering
Using Map Scales to Figure Distances and Areas
The asteroid is getting closer and the question is whether the state of Alabraska is large enough for the shelter calculated in the previous activity. Teams determine the scale of their project and then use the scale on the map to...
Teach Engineering
Study Design for Air Quality Research
Provide your class with the tools they need to design a research project. Groups examine case studies to gain information about the process involved in designing a research project. They use materials provided to brainstorm and develop a...
Teach Engineering
An Introduction to Air Quality Research
Viewers are a PowerPoint are exposed to the idea that pollutants are in more than just the air we breathe. the presentation provides information about the layers of the earth's atmosphere and takes a look at the pollutants in the...
Teach Engineering
Building and Testing Model Underground Safety Caverns
Teams take their cavern designs and build a model from clay or paper mache that can be buried in sand. Testing involves dropping a bowling ball on the buried cavern. Teams dig out their cavern, inspect it for damage, and consider...
Teach Engineering
How Big? Necessary Area and Volume for Shelter
Teams must determine the size of cavern needed to house the citizens of Alabraska to protect them from the asteroid impact. Using scaling properties, teams first determining the number of people that could sleep in a classroom and then...
Teach Engineering
Combustion and Air Quality: Emissions Monitoring
Help your class determine the types of pollutants coming from vehicle exhaust. Groups use an air quality monitor to determine the emissions from different vehicles, to gain knowledge about combustion energy, and to predict how the...
Teach Engineering
Weather Forecasting
According to the Farmers' Almanac, the weather will be nice today. Class members examine how weather forecasting plays a part in their lives with a resource that provides information on the history of forecasting, from using cloud...
Rainforest Alliance
Investments in Forest Carbon
One hundred metric tons of CO2 can accumulate in one acre of forest over time—that's a lot of carbon! In the activity, groups of middle school learners determine what makes forests important. They then solidify the concept by using a...
Rainforest Alliance
Forests of Guatemala
With 90 percent of its land area covered in forests, Suriname, a country in South America, contains the largest percentage of forests throughout the world. Here is an activity that brings classmates together to learn about the...
Rainforest Alliance
Trees and Carbon
You'll find everything but the kitchen sink here ... or just a carbon sink. In the activity, pairs or groups of middle school learners go outside and measure a tree's circumference and height to estimate its carbon storage potential and...
Teach Engineering
Protecting Our City with Levees
Teams use the design process to design, build, and test a model levee to protect the town from a wall of water. A handout provides a price list for the materials learners can use to build their levee within a budget.
Teach Engineering
Hurricanes
When a levee fails, it means disaster. Introduce your class to hurricanes and the technologies used to help protect against them. The included presentation provides background information using Hurricane Katrina as a reference.
Teach Engineering
Weather Alert
Every time a bell rings ... there is lightning in the area. The activity provides directions to build a model of a lightning detection system. Similar to a system designed by Benjamin Franklin, the system uses static electricity to...
Teach Engineering
Building a Barometer
Forget your local meteorologist — build your own barometer and keep track of the weather with an activity that provides directions to build a barometer out of a narrow necked bottle, a glass, and some water. Using their barometer, teams...
Teach Engineering
Air Under Pressure
Introduce your class to air masses and how they affect the weather with a lesson that focuses on the differences between high and low air pressure systems. The class explores actual weather data using archived weather data.
Maine Math & Science Alliance
Earth as a System
Ecosystem, human body system, weather system. We hear the word system a lot, but what does it really mean? In the activity, pairs or groups of learners discuss how a bicycle is a system and then analyze objects in their classroom and...
National Wildlife Federation
An Inconvenient Truth in the Classroom
Global warming — what a hot topic! A thorough unit challenges learners to research, read, explore, and write about carbon, its role and increasing nature in our atmosphere, and how global warming is affecting lives and environments...
Teach Engineering
Global Climate Change
The greenhouse effect and its relationship to global warming is the focus of an activity that asks class member to consider the effects of climate change on weather. Pupils work with their families to determine their carbon footprints...
Teach Engineering
Backyard Weather Station
Challenge young meteorologists to apply their knowledge of weather to build their own weather stations. The resource provides the directions to build a weather station that contains a wind vane, barometer, thermometer, and rain gauge....