Teach Engineering
Optimizing Pencils in a Tray
What do you call a story about a broken pencil? Pointless. Scholars may not be telling stories when using the resource, but they are solving optimization problems involving the maximum number of pencils that can fit on a tray. They...
Teach Engineering
Alloy the Way to Mars
Future engineers test different alloys to determine the specific strength of each one. Based on the results, they make a recommendation to NASA on which alloy to use on engines for spacecraft.
Teach Engineering
Antimatter Matters
Use science fiction movies to teach pupils about antimatter and alternate universes. Individuals learn about the portrayal of antimatter and alternate universes in movies such as Star Trek and Angels & Demons. They consider three...
Teach Engineering
Piezoelectricity
What effect makes children's shoes light up? Answer: Piezoelectric effect. Here is a PowerPoint presentation that describes piezoelectric materials as being able to convert mechanical energy to electrical energy. Individuals learn how...
Teach Engineering
Adapatations for Bird Flight - Inspiration for Aeronautical Engineering
It's a bird, it's a ... device made to mimic birds. The eighth installment of a nine-part module has pupils read various articles to learn about bird flight. They consider the implications for aeronautical engineering.
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...
Teach Engineering
Designing a Sustainable Guest Village in the Saguaro National Park
Brainstorm ideas to design a sustainable guest village in the Sonoran Desert. The first installment of a nine-part unit teaches young environmental scientists about the basics of the Saguaro National Park and about sustainable design....
Teach Engineering
Biomes and Population Dynamics - Balance Within Natural Systems
How large can a population become? The fifth installment of a nine-part unit teaches young ecologists about limiting factors that determine the carrying capacity of species in the Sonoran Desert. Here is a PowerPoint to help present this...
Teach Engineering
Body Full of Crystals
Your body has lots of crystals, just not any gemstones. The first installment of a three-part unit provides a PowerPoint presentation on crystallization occurring in the human body and about crystallization in general. The resource gives...
Teach Engineering
Alloy Advantage
Mix it up by using an intriguing resource that teaches young metallurgists that alloys are a metal mixture. They learn about the advantages of using alloys over pure metals and investigate titanium alloys as an example to finish the...
Teach Engineering
Fun Look at Material Science
Introduce materials science with a class demonstration. After showing a PowerPoint presentation on materials and their properties, instructors provide a ceramic tile, a Popsicle stick, a paper clip, and a plastic bag as examples of...
Teach Engineering
Kidney Stone Crystallization
No one likes kidney stones, but they are very interesting to learn about. The last installment of a three-part unit has learners experiment with different chemicals to see which one inhibits the growth of calcium oxalate crystals (which...
Teach Engineering
Building a Piezoelectric Generator
In pairs, learners build a piezoelectric generator from readily available electric components in the second and final installment of the two-part series. Tapping the piezoelectric element produces enough electricity to light an LED....
Teach Engineering
Build the Biggest Box
Boxing takes on a whole new meaning! The second installment of the three-part series has groups create lidless boxes from construction paper that can hold the most rice. After testing out their constructions, they build a new box....
Teach Engineering
Bridging to Polymers: Thermoset Lab
Investigate thermoset polymers through experimentation. In an effort to determine the strongest, most flexible mixture, groups conduct an experiment on different-ratio epoxy-amine polymers to finish the set of two lessons.
Teach Engineering
Exploring Bone Mineral Density
Bone up on bone density. The second installment of the seven-part series has pupils read articles on two different websites to learn about bone density and its measurement, as well as X-rays and other imaging tools. A quiz assesses their...
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Bone Density Math and Logarithm Introduction
What do logarithms have to do with bone density? Scholars learn that the equation for bone density includes logarithms. The majority of the third instructional activity of seven is devoted to logarithms and their properties.
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
Linear Regression of BMD Scanners
Objects may be more linear than they appear. Scholars investigate the relationship between the number of bone mineral density scanners in the US and time. Once they take the natural logarithm of the number of scanners, a linear...
Teach Engineering
Bone Mineral Density Math and Beer's Law
Hop into a resource on Beer's Law. A PowerPoint presentation introduces Beer's law as part of calculating bone density from X-ray images in the sixth lesson plan in the series of seven. Individuals work on practice problems with this law...
Teach Engineering
Light Intensity Lab
Let there be light. The last installment of a seven-part series has pupils conduct an experiment on light attenuation through different numbers of transparency sheets. They then relate the results back to how X-rays measure bone density.
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
Let's Take a Spin: One-Axis Rotation
Investigate the effect of one-axis rotations on geometric figures. Scholars learn to use snap cubes and the right-hand rule to draw figures after rotations about the x-, y-, or z-axes. They try their hands at examples created by the...
Teach Engineering
Efficiency of an Electromechanical System
How efficient is a motor in a LEGO set? Future engineers conduct an activity where a LEGO motor-generator system raises an object to a specified height. They then show what they learned and use their measurements to calculate the energy...