An Uphill Swim

Take a look with your class at how nature supplies inspiration to engineers. In cooperative groups, youngsters research biomimicry and then develop a system that would help support people living on the moon. Each team also considers...

While canals are not the way to travel today, in the first half of the nineteenth century, they were sometimes the best way to move goods and people. Scholars examine primary sources, including maps and pictures, to investigate the role...

How is solar energy able to move wind and water to control the climate? Scholars explore the concept of solar energy in the first of 10 activities in the Discover Your Changing World series. They follow instructions to build homemade...

Your world history class might be interested to know that the early Egyptians had the first interstate highway system. Part two of "Engineering an Empire," looks at canal and harbor construction on the Nile that permitted transport of...

Systems relate to every branch of science and take the position as the fourth concept in the Next Generation Science Standards. The video opens with the characteristics of a system. Then it describes how models help understand the system...

Students learn and use the properties of light to solve the following challenge: "A mummified troll was discovered this summer at our school and it has generated lots of interest worldwide. The principal asked us, the technology classes,...

Virtually sail through the Panama Canal as you watch this time-lapse video. Great for a geography or social studies class, the video is from the perspective of a ship's passenger on May 8, 2003 as it crosses through the canal and locks.

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...

Students use DNA profiling to determine who robbed a bank. After they learn how the FBI's Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) is used to match crime scene DNA with tissue sample DNA, students use CODIS principles and sample DNA fragments...

This instructional activity introduces young scholars to the important concept of density. The focus is on the more easily understood densities of solids, but students can also explore the densities of liquids and gases. Young scholars...