Mobile Forces

Students design various commercial products for the Cincinnati Art Museum using on-line sources, past designs, and creative educational software. This lesson has excellent project ideas for various student levels including: K-2, 3-5,...

Art and science sometimes go hand in hand. A set of four activities for learners in grades 3-5 teaches engineering concepts as part of art projects. Class members build homemade robots, elastic puppets, musical instruments, and...

Does it balance? An activity provides an opportunity to investigate the mathematics involved in making a balanced mobile. Using a stop-action video, the resource provides the formula needed to create a mobile that balances. The Math at...

The set for a play combines design elements (style, line, shape, mass, measure, position, color, and texture) and principles of composition (unity, harmony, contrast, variation, balance, proportion, and emphasis) to create a particular...

Wrap up the unit in one final design. Pairs use their knowledge of aviation to design new flying machines and record how their designs take into consideration the forces that act upon airplanes. The pupils determine whether their designs...

Fifth graders create a radially balanced design using geometric shapes which exhibits their prior knowledge of symmetry. They use a kaleidoscope image to develop a design using markers or colored pencils.

Too much material will weigh you down. The sixth segment in a series of 22 highlights how weight affects a plane. Pupils learn that engineers take the properties of materials, including weight, when designing something. 

Study three of the basic principles of design: l) designs should create a rhythmic pattern made up of related shapes, 2) colors should be repeated so as to not force the eye to remain with a single part of the composition, and 3) a...

Children learn by doing. Here, they discuss cultural uses of containers, coil and slab techniques, functional aesthetics, and the principles of art and design. The entire process for making a coil pot is fully described here to make the...

Budding artists experiment with balance and movement as they learn about Alex Calder and his kinetic sculptures. They'll view several of Calder's pieces and review biographical information, then they'll work through the artistic process...