TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Renewable Energy Living Lab: Power Your School
Students use real-world data to calculate the potential for solar and wind energy generation at their school location. After examining maps and analyzing data from the online Renewable Energy Living Lab, they write recommendations as to...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Renewable Energy Living Lab
Students become familiar with the online Renewable Energy Living Lab interface and access its real-world solar energy data to evaluate the potential for solar generation in various U.S. locations. They become familiar with where the most...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Renewable Energy Living Lab: Smart Solar
Students use real-world data to evaluate whether solar power is a viable energy alternative for several cities in different parts of the U.S. Working in small groups, they examine maps and make calculations using NREL/US DOE data from...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Moving Without Wheels
In a class demonstration, students observe a simple water cycle model to better understand its role in pollutant transport. This activity shows one way in which pollution is affected by the water cycle; it simulates a point source of...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Is That Legal? A Case of Acid Rain
The goal of this activity is to understand how techniques of persuasion (including background, supporting evidence, storytelling and the call to action) are used to develop an argument for or against a topic. Students develop an...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Breathing Cells
Students use a simple pH indicator to measure how much CO2 is produced during respiration, at rest and after exercising. They begin by comparing some common household solutions in order to determine the color change of the indicator....
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Saltwater Circuit
Students build a saltwater circuit, which is an electrical circuit that uses saltwater as part of the circuit. Students investigate the conductivity of saltwater, and develop an understanding of how the amount of salt in a solution...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Model Greenhouses
Students learn about the advantages and disadvantages of the greenhouse effect. They construct their own miniature greenhouses and explore how their designs take advantage of heat transfer processes to create controlled environments....
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Zero Energy Housing
Students investigate passive solar building design with a focus solely on heating. They learn how insulation, window placement, thermal mass, surface colors, and site orientation play important roles in passive solar heating. They use...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Shades of Gray(water)
Students are introduced to the concepts of graywater and water reuse within households. They calculate the amount of used water a family generates in one day and use a model of home plumbing to find out how much graywater is produced in...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Rooftop Gardens
Students explore whether rooftop gardens are a viable option for combating the urban heat island effect. Can rooftop gardens reduce the temperature inside and outside houses? Teams each design and construct two model buildings using foam...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Design a Net Zero Energy Classroom
Students create a concept design of their very own net-zero energy classroom by pasting renewable energy and energy-efficiency items into and around a pretend classroom on a sheet of paper. They learn how these items (such as solar...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: How Fast Can a Carrot Rot?
Students conduct experiments to determine what environmental factors favor decomposition by soil microbes. They use chunks of carrots for the materials to be decomposed, and their experiments are carried out in plastic bags filled with...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Basically Acidic Ink
Students hypothesize whether vinegar and ammonia-based glass cleaner are acids or bases. They create designs on index cards using these substances as invisible inks. After the index cards have dried, they apply red cabbage juice as an...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Microbes Know How to Work!
Students design systems that use microbes to break down a water pollutant (in this case, sugar). They explore how temperature affects the rate of pollutant decomposition.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: A Guide to Rain Garden Construction
Student groups create personal rain gardens planted with native species to provide a green infrastructure and low-impact development technology solution for areas with poor drainage that often flood during storm events.
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Teach Engineering: Computer Simulation of the Sonoran Desert Community
The computer program's simulation of a Sonoran desert community should ultimately strengthen the student's comprehension of what is required for a natural ecosystem to sustain itself (remain in balance). This computer simulation program...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Energy Storage Derby and Proposal
In Activity 5, as part of the Going Public step, students demonstrate their knowledge of how potential energy may be transferred into kinetic energy. Students design, build and test vehicle prototypes that transfer various types of...
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Teach Engineering: Chromatography Lab
To increase students' awareness of possible invisible pollutants in drinking water sources, students perform an exciting lab requiring them to think about how solutions and mixtures exist even in unsuspecting places such as ink. They use...
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Teach Engineering: Density Column Lab Part 1
In this first part of a two-part lab activity, students use triple balance beams and graduated cylinders to take measurements and calculate the densities of several common, irregularly shaped objects with the purpose to resolve confusion...
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Teach Engineering: Density Column Lab Part 2
Concluding a two-part lab activity, students use triple balance beams and graduated cylinders to take measurements and calculate densities of several household liquids and compare them to the densities of irregularly shaped objects (as...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: The Physics of Fluid Mechanics
Five lessons about the study of fluid mechanics. The unit concludes with students applying what they have learned to determine the stability of individual above-ground storage tanks given specific storm conditions so they can analyze...
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Teach Engineering: Clean Energy: Hydropower
Hydropower generation is introduced to students as a common purpose and benefit of constructing dams. Through an introduction to kinetic and potential energy, students come to understand how a dam creates electricity. They also learn the...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Test and Treat Before You Drink
Young scholars learn about water quality testing and basic water treatment processes and technology options. Biological, physical and chemical treatment processes are addressed, as well as physical and biological water quality testing,...