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A Tasty Experiment
Students work together to determine if smell is important to being able to recongize food by taste. They try different foods with different textures and hold their nose. They create a graph of their results.
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Can You Hear It?
Students work together to discover the concept of echolocation. They examine dolphins and their behaviors. They discuss how humans could use this information to help them in their everyday lives as well.
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Composting -- Nature's Disappearing Act
Studenst work together to discover the concept of biodegradability. They build a model of a landfill and how different items decompose. They examine how engineers use this information for better waste management.
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Issues Awareness
Pupils work together to create a survery about environmental issues in their community. They calculate and graph the results. They discuss the importance of surveys to engineers.
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Ready to Erupt!
Students observe a visual representation of a volcano erupting. They measure and sketch the volcano and discuss how engineers use this information. They discover the type of equipment used to indicate an eruption.
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Satellite Tracker
Students use satellite tracking software to monitor different satellites. They predict and graph the motion of the space station. They create a 3-D display of its path and share it with the class.
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State Your Position
Middle schoolers practice using a global positioning system. They discuss the use of celestial objects as navigation points and its problems. They list the advantages and disadvantages of GPS as well.
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Washing Air
Students observe a model of a wet scrubber. They discuss this and other methods of pollutant recovery. They discover how engineers use this information to protect the environment.
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Power, Work and the Waterwheel
Students use a two-liter bottle, dowel rod and index cards to design and construct a water wheel. They then calculate the power created and measure the work done by the water wheel in Watts and Joules.
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Charge It!
Students complete an experiment using balloons to help them examine the concept of static electricity. They discover how engineers use this information to create better air filters for homes. They describe how to charge an insulator as...
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Scale Model of the Earth
Students work together to create a model of the Earth. They label and identify each layer and describing its properties. They discover how engineers use models to test different concepts.
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Museums in the Classroom Pumpkin Project
Students identify the 5 stages in the life cycle of a pumpkin. They create a model showing the correct order of pumpkin life stages. They explain a pumpkin's life cycle to a partner, using their model.
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Interactions Everywhere!
Students examine interactions within the environment and environmental engineering careers. They discuss and view photos of natural and manmade environments, explore various websites, create a web to identify interactions between living...
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Legends of Airpower: Aviation-Then, Now and Here
Students examine the advancements made in aviation during and since WWII. They read an interview with Charles McGee, research a plane, build a model of a plane, and develop a Powerpoint presentation about aircraft.
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Geography: Water, Water Everywhere
Students discuss flooding and its causes. They view a Powerpoint presentation about floods and prevention methods. After creating a model with clay and pans, they investigate river behavior in various terrains with different amounts of...
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Oil Spill
Students explore an important role of environmental engineers by studying the Exxon Valdez oil spill. They experiment with different strategies in order to clean up their own manufactured oil spill.
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Where is Here?
Students are shown the very basics of navigation. The concepts of relative and absolute location, latitude, longitude and cardinal directions are discussed, as well as the use and principles of a map and compass.
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Skyscrapers: Engineering Up!
Students build their own newspaper skyscrapers with limited materials and time. They identify several different structural engineering principles relating to skyscrapers. They explain how their towers resisted the wind load.
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Volcanic Panic!
Students begin with an overview of the Earth's interior and how volcanoes form. They learn how engineers predict eruptions. In a class demonstration, students watch and measure a mock volcanic eruption and observe the phases of an...
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See Spot Run
Students identify several properties of water as a universal substance, describe the composition of several complex color mixtures and separate the components of dye using chromatographic technique.
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Earthquakes Rock!
Students study the main methods to measure earthquakes; the Richter Scale and Mercalli Scale. They make a model of a seismograph and investigate which structural designs are most likely to survive an earthquake.
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Fighting Back!
Fifth graders inspect the basic functions of the immune system and determine how viruses and bacteria invade the immune system. They also explore what happens to the immune system in outer space.
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Riding the Radio Waves
Learners examine the basic concepts of radio waves and magnetic fields. They study how the AM radios are built and demonstrate the concepts of amplitude and frequency.
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Digestive System
Students analyze how the digestive system works by taking the food we eat and breaking it down for our bodies to use for various reasons. They list the major components of the digestive system and draw a diagram. They explain how...