Teach Engineering
About Accuracy and Approximation
How accurate are robots? Groups draw lines by moving robots backwards and forwards by one rotation of the wheels. Using the appropriate formula, they determine the percent error in the length of the lines in relation to the calculated...
PBS
Hands-On Engineering Challenges to Bolster Your Electricity, Sound, and Force Units
Need some activities to go along with your unit? A collection of hands-on activities from PBS offers opportunities to add to your electricity, sound, and force units. The electricity activities revolve around building a...
Conneticut Department of Education
Personal Finance Project Resource Book
Balancing a budget, paying taxes, and buying a home may feel out of reach for your high schoolers, but in their adult years they will thank you for the early tips. A set of five lessons integrates applicable money math...
Teach Engineering
Design and Build a Rube Goldberg
Let's see how complicated we can make this simple task. The last activity associated with a 10-part series has groups design and build a Rube Goldberg machine. Teams determine a simple task to accomplish and use the engineering design...
Teach Engineering
Machines and Tools (Part 2)
Which pulley system will give us a whale of a good time? Teams compare the theoretical and actual mechanical advantages of different pulley systems. They then form a recommendation for how to move a whale from an aquarium back to the ocean.
Teach Engineering
Bridge Types: Tensile and Compressive Forces
Bridges rely on tension and compression to keep them standing. Pairs test this principle by constructing simple bridges and applying a force to the center. Teams use the provided activity to record their observations of the...
Teach Engineering
Connect the Dots: Isometric Drawing and Coded Plans
Individuals discover how to draw cubes on triangle-dot paper. They use cubes to build structures and draw corresponding isometric drawings on dot paper in the second lesson of the series of five. The activity also introduces the concept...
Teach Engineering
Earthquakes Living Lab: Finding Epicenters and Measuring Magnitudes
Pairs use an online simulation to determine the epicenter and magnitude of an earthquake. Using real data about the earthquake's maximum S wave amplitudes, they then determine the magnitude. The resource provides a great career...
PBL Pathways
Students and Teachers 2
Examine trends in student-to-teacher ratios over time. Building from the first task in the two-part series, classes now explore the pattern of student-to-teacher ratios using a non-linear function. After trying to connect the pattern to...
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
Quantum Dots and the Harkess Method
The Fantastic Voyage is becoming close to reality. The class reads an article on the use of nanotechnology in the medical field and participate in a discussion about what they read. The discussion method helps class members become more...
Teach Engineering
Amusement Park Ride: The Ups and Downs in Design
Groups design the ultimate roller coaster by considering potential and kinetic energy. They test their designs using marbles and then go on to rate each group's design based on aesthetics, loop diameter, and cost.
Gatton Park
Magical Maths
A variety of activities take scholars outside the classroom to explore shapes, symmetry, measurement, patterns, sorting, and time in nature. Learners participate individually, and in teams, to measure found objects, go on a...
Illustrative Mathematics
How Thick Is a Soda Can II?
Science, technology, and math come together in this one combination exercise. Analyzing the common soda can from both a purely mathematical perspective and a scientific angle allows for a surprisingly sophisticated comparison of...
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Natural Selection and the Evolution of Darwin's Finches
Darwin explained the connection between species of finches 150 years before scientists understood DNA. Technology and progressing science proved he was right, yet many struggle to understand how natural selection happens. Scholars use...
Teach Engineering
Catching the Perfect SAR Waves!
Zero in on an interesting resource involving radar technology. Groups construct a radar sensing unit and learn to calibrate the system. Using the radar system and the Pythagorean Theorem, they calculate distances between objects.
Teach Engineering
Measuring Surface Tension
How do you measure surface tension? The fifth installment of a nine-part series is an experiment where young scientists use tubes of different sizes to measure surface tension. They calculate the average and standard deviation of the...
PBL Pathways
Doctors and Nurses
How many nurses does it take to support one doctor? A project-based activity asks learners to analyze state data to answer this question. Classes create polynomial functions from the data of doctors and nurses over a seven-year...
PBL Pathways
Students and Teachers
Predict the future of education through a mathematical analysis. Using a project-based learning strategy, classes examine the pattern of student-to-teacher ratios over a period of years. Provided with the relevant data, learners create a...
US Department of Commerce
Does the Percentage of People Who Walk to Work in Cities Vary with Population Size?
To walk or not to walk? Pupils create box plots comparing the percentage of residents who walk to work in large, medium, and small cities. Using the box plots, class members compare the data that reflects available statistics. Scholars...
Illustrative Mathematics
Calculating and Rounding Numbers
Mathematicians need to know that not all numbers are rational. We approximate irrational number with rational numbers. That is why a calculator may be misleading. This task give learners an opportunity to see how rounding a number and...
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
The Roll Out Fractions Game: Comparing Fractions
Reinforce the concept of comparing fractions with a hands-on, two-player game that calls for a visual model, score board, and dice. Players roll dice to acquire their given fraction, create the fraction using fraction tiles, then...
Teach Engineering
Keepers of the Gate Journal and Brainstorm
The second segment of a seven-part series reviews the challenge of determining whether gargling with salt water helps a sore throat. Individuals journal what they know about the challenge and what they are trying to figure out to...
Teach Engineering
Glue Sticks Bend and Twist
Stick this resource in the "Use" column. In the second installment of a six-part series, learners use glue sticks to demonstrate forces. Using glue sticks, instructors can demonstrate tension, compression, and torsion.