TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Be "Cool" With Popsicle Engineering
Beginning kindergarteners are introduced to science and engineering concepts through questions such as "What is a Scientist?" and "What is an Engineer?", and go on to compare and contrast the two. They are introduced to five steps of the...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Naturally Organized
Students work in teams to design a tabletop supply organizer inspired by the natural home of an insect species. Their prototype stores the group's classroom supplies (scissors, crayon boxes, pencils, and glue sticks). In addition to...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Solving Everyday Problems Using the Engineering Design Cycle
Students are introduced to two real-life problems that can be solved by using the engineering design process. For the first one, they watch a slide presentation that shows how students use the engineering design process to build an...
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Teach Engineering: Trade Offs and Maximizing Efficiency in a Fast Food Restaurant
Students learn about how to improve efficiency by examining fast food restaurants. More specifically, they learn about the concepts of trade-offs, constraints, increasing efficiency and systems thinking. They consider how to improve the...
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Teach Engineering: Gears: Lift It Up!
In this activity, students learn about the trade-off between speed and torque when designing gear ratios. The activity setup includes a LEGO pulley system with two independent gear sets and motors that spin two pulleys. Each pulley has...
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Teach Engineering: Energy Intelligence Agency
This activity provides an active way for students to discover a few critical facts about how we use energy and how much energy we use. Each student has a "clue", some of which are pertinent energy facts and others are silly statements...
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Teach Engineering: Trash to Treasure!
Student teams use the engineering design process to create a useful product of their choice out of recyclable items and "trash." The class is given a "landfill" of reusable items, such as aluminum cans, cardboard, paper, juice boxes,...
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Teach Engineering: Ecology at Work
Students learn how rooftop gardens help the environment and the lives of people, especially in urban areas. They gain an understanding of how plants reduce the urban heat island effect, improve air quality, provide agriculture space,...
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Teach Engineering: What Color Is Your Air Today?
Students develop awareness and understanding of the daily air quality using the Air Quality Index (AQI) listed in the newspaper. They explore what engineers can do to help reduce poor air quality.
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Teach Engineering: Environmental History Timeline
Students develop critical thinking skills by interviewing a person who has perspective on environmental history. Students explore the concept of a timeline, including historical milestones, and develop a sense of the context of events.
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Teach Engineering: Good News We're on the Rise!
Students build and observe a simple aneroid barometer to learn about changes in barometric pressure and weather forecasting.
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Teach Engineering: Dangerous Air
By tracing the movement of radiation released during an accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, students see how air pollution, like particulate matter, can become a global issue.
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Teach Engineering: How Predictable!
Students follow weather forecasts to gauge their accuracy and produce a weather report for the class. They develop skills of observation, recording and reporting.
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Teach Engineering: Acid Rain Effects
Students conduct a simple experiment to model and explore the harmful effects of acid rain (vinegar) on living (green leaf and eggshell) and non-living (paper clip) objects.
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Teach Engineering: It's Really Heating Up in Here!
Students create and observe a greenhouse effect model and discuss the implications of global warming theory for engineers, themselves and the Earth.
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Teach Engineering: Pollution Politics
Students learn how a bill becomes law in the U.S. Congress and research legislation related to global warming.
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Teach Engineering: Smoke and Mirrors
Students develop a persuasive peer-to-peer case against smoking, with the goal to understand how language usage can influence perception, attitudes and behavior.
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Teach Engineering: Cleaning Air With Balloons
Students observe and discuss a simple balloon model of an electrostatic precipitator to better understand how this pollutant recovery method functions in cleaning industrial air pollution.
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Teach Engineering: A Merry Go Round for Dirty Air
Students observe and discuss a cup and pencil model of a cyclone to better understand how this pollutant recovery method functions in cleaning industrial air pollution.
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Teach Engineering: Let's Bag It
Students observe and discuss a vacuum cleaner model of a baghouse to better understand how this pollutant recovery method functions in cleaning industrial air pollution.
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Teach Engineering: What's a Kid to Do?
Students write letters as part of an environmental action campaign. They become more aware of global environmental problems and play a part in their solution.
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Teach Engineering: Fun With Bernoulli
While we know there is air around us all the time, we normally do not notice the air pressure. The purpose of this is activity is to use Bernoulli's Principle to manipulate air pressure so we can see its influence on the objects around us.
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Teach Engineering: Air Pressure
Air pressure is pushing on us all the time although we do not usually notice it. This activity will discuss the units of pressure and give the students a sense of just how much air pressure is pushing on them.
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Teach Engineering: Windy Tunnel
The purpose of this activity is to demonstrate Bernoulli's Principle as it relates to winged flight. The students will use computers to see the influence of camber and airfoil angle of attack on the lift.