TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: What Is Energy? Short Demos
Three short, hands-on, in-class demos expand students' understand of energy. First, using peanuts and heat, students see how the human body burns food to make energy. Then, students create paper snake mobiles to explore how heat energy...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Fascinating Friction!
In this activity, students use wood, wax paper and oil to investigate the importance of lubrication between materials and to understand the concept of friction. Using wax paper and oil placed between pieces of wood, the function of...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Do You Have the Strength?
In this activity, students squeeze a tennis ball to demonstrate the strength of the human heart. Working in teams, they think of ways to keep the heart beating if the natural mechanism were to fail. The goal of this activity is to get...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Let Your Ears Do the Walking
In the previous lesson, students learned about the issue of bycatching by fisheries and how it affects marine habitats. Dolphins are one of the main species affected by bycatching. Dolphins use echolocation to identify the location of...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Can You Hear It?
In the previous lesson, students learned about the issue of bycatching by fisheries and how it affects marine habitats. Dolphins are one of the main species affected by bycatching. While dolphins can use echolocation to identify the...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Touch and Discover
Students work in pairs or small groups to identify and categorize various objects. One student is blindfolded and the other student chooses five objects for their partner to identify. The blindfolded student has to describe and try to...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Animals and Engineering
Students are introduced to the classification of animals and animal interactions. Students also learn why engineers need to know about animals and how they use that knowledge to design technologies that help other animals and/or humans....
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: How Should Our Gardens Grow?
In this lesson plan, students will learn about types of land use by humans and evaluate the ways land is used in their local community. They will also consider the environmental effects of the different types of land use. Students will...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Spaced Out
This lesson introduces students to the space environment. It covers the major differences between the environment on Earth and that of outer space and the engineering challenges that arise because of these discrepancies. In order to...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Our Amazing Skeleton
This lesson covers the topic of human bones and joints. Students learn about the skeleton, the number of and types of bones in the body, and how outer space affects astronauts' bones. Students also learn how to take care of their bones...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Nerve Racking
This lesson describes the function and components of the human nervous system. It helps students understand the purpose of our brain, spinal cord, nerves and the five senses. How the nervous system is affected during spaceflight is also...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Unlocking the Endocrine System
Students learn how the endocrine system works and compare it to the mail delivery system. Students discuss the importance of communication in human body systems and relate that to engineering and astronauts.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Transportation and the Environment
Looking at transportation and the environment, young scholars learn that some human-made creations, such as vehicles, can harm the environment. They also learn about alternative fuels and vehicles designed by engineers to minimize...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Manned Mission to Mars
This instructional activity will discuss the details for a possible future manned mission to Mars. The human risks are discussed and evaluated to minimize danger to astronauts. A specialized launch schedule is provided and the different...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Land on the Run
Students learn about landslides, discovering that there are different types of landslides that occur at different speeds - from very slow to very quick. All landslides are the result of gravity, friction and the materials involved. Both...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Navigating at the Speed of Satellites
For thousands of years, navigators have looked to the sky for direction. Today, celestial navigation has simply switched from using natural objects to human-created satellites. A constellation of satellites, called the Global Positioning...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Rock Solid
Rocks cover the earth's surface, including what is below or near human-made structures. With rocks everywhere, breaking rocks can be hazardous and potentially disastrous to people. Students are introduced to three types of material...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Mercury and Venus
Students explore Mercury and Venus, the first and second planets nearest the Sun. They learn about the planets' characteristics, including their differences from Earth. Students also learn how engineers are involved in the study of...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Our Big Blue Marble
Young scholars are introduced to the fabulous planet on which they live. Even though we spend our entire lives on Earth, we still do not always understand how it fits into the rest of the solar system. Students learn about the Earth's...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Moon Walk
Students learn about the Earth's only natural satellite, the Moon. They discuss the Moon's surface features and human exploration. They also learn about how engineers develop technologies to study and explore the Moon, which also helps...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Life in Space: The International Space Station
Students are introduced to the International Space Station (ISS) with information about its structure, operation and key experiments. The ISS itself is an experiment in international cooperation to explore the potential for humans to...
Other
What Is a Worldview?
A detailed article about how humans develop a "worldview" and how they see themselves in the world interacting with other people. A worldview can be religious or non-religious.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Carbon Cycles
Students are introduced to the concept of energy cycles by learning about the carbon cycle. They will learn how carbon atoms travel through the geological (ancient) carbon cycle and the biological/physical carbon cycle. Students will...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Water, Water Everywhere
Students learn about floods, discovering that different types of floods occur from different water sources, but primarily from heavy rainfall. While floods occur naturally and have benefits such as creating fertile farmland, students...