
Paper Airplanes: Building, Testing, & Improving. Heads Up! Middle School Activity
Students learn the different airplane parts, including wing, flap, aileron, fuselage, cockpit, propeller, spinner, engine, tail, rudder, elevator. Then they each build one of four different (provided) paper airplane (really, glider) designs with instructions, which they test in three trials, measuring flight distance and time. Then they design and build (fold, cut) a second paper airplane design of their own creation, which they also test for flight distance and time. They graph the collected class data. Analysis of these experiments with "model" airplanes and their results help them see and figure out what makes airplanes fly and what can be changed to influence the flying characteristics and performance of airplanes.

What Are Gears and What Do They Do? Elementary School Lesson
Students are introduced to an important engineering element—the gear. Different types of gears are used in many engineering devices, including wind-up toys, bicycles, cars and non-digital clocks. Students learn about various types of gears and how they work in machines. They handle and combine LEGO spur gears as an exercise in gear ratios. They see how gears and different gear train arrangements are used to change the speed, torque and direction of a power source. This prepares them to apply this knowledge in four associated activities in order to create successful solutions to design challenges that use LEGO® MINDSTORMS® EV3 robots. A PowerPoint® presentation, pre/post quizzes and a worksheet are provided.

Locks and Dams Middle School Lesson
Students are introduced to the structure, function and purpose of locks and dams, which involves an introduction to Pascal's law, water pressure and gravity.

Trust in the Truss: Design a Wooden Bridge High School Activity
In this activity students design, construct, and test the strength of a wooden truss bridge and satisfy certain conditions like span, strength, and cost. Students perform the truss bridge strength estimation using a graphic interface that determine stress-compression on the truss elements using the method of joints. Students consider their materials’ hypothetical costs and test their constructed bridges to verify load strength. Expect that the bridges can resist at least 90% of their estimated strength and in case of failure, students have to determine the possible causes.

Making & Breaking: The Rock Cycle Middle School Lesson
Students learn the components of the rock cycle and how rocks can change over time under the influence of weathering, erosion, pressure and heat. They learn about geotechnical engineering and the role these engineers play in land development, the design and placement of new structures and natural disaster detection.

Capillarity—Measuring Surface Tension High School Lesson
Students are presented with a short lesson on the difference between cohesive forces (the forces that hold water molecules together and create surface tension) and adhesive forces (the forces that causes water to "stick" to solid surfaces. The interaction between cohesive forces and adhesive forces causes the well-known capillary action. Students also use the associated activities to introduce examples of capillary action found in nature and in our day-to-day lives.

Swinging Pendulum (for High School) High School Activity
This activity shows students the engineering importance of understanding the laws of mechanical energy. More specifically, it demonstrates how potential energy can be converted to kinetic energy and back again. Given a pendulum height, students calculate and predict how fast the pendulum will swing by using the equations for potential and kinetic energy. The equations will be justified as students experimentally measure the speed of the pendulum and compare theory with reality.

Water Cycle Elementary School CurricularUnit
Water is essential to life. Understanding how the water cycle works, the importance of water as a natural resource, and how our household water cycle functions is essential knowledge for everyone. Through a range of water-based explorations and the engineering design process, students learn about the water cycle and how engineers manage it.

Tsunami Attack! Giant Wave Characteristics and Causes Elementary School Lesson
Students learn about tsunamis, discovering what causes them and what makes them so dangerous. They learn that engineers design detection and warning equipment, as well as structures that that can survive the strong wave forces. In a hands-on activity, students use a table-top-sized tsunami generator to observe the formation and devastation of a tsunami. They see how a tsunami moves across the ocean and what happens when it reaches a coastline. They make villages of model houses to test how different material types are impacted by the huge waves.

Swinging on a String Middle School Lesson
Students explore how pendulums work and why they are useful in everyday applications. In a hands-on activity, they experiment with string length, pendulum weight and angle of release. In an associated literacy activity, students explore the mechanical concept of rhythm, based on the principle of oscillation, in a broader biological and cultural context — in dance and sports, poetry and other literary forms, and communication in general.

Straw Towers to the Moon Elementary School Activity
Students learn about civil engineers and work through each step of the engineering design process in two mini-activities that prepare them for a culminating challenge to design and build the tallest straw tower possible, given limited time and resources. First they examine the profiles of the tallest 20 towers in the world. Then in the first mini-activity (one-straw tall tower), student pairs each design a way to keep one straw upright with the least amount of tape and fewest additional straws. In the second mini-activity (no "fishing pole"), the pairs determine the most number of straws possible to construct a vertical straw tower before it bends at 45 degrees—resembling a fishing pole shape. Students learn that the taller a structure, the more tendency it has to topple over. In the culminating challenge (tallest straw tower), student pairs apply what they have learned and follow the steps of the engineering design process to create the tallest possible model tower within time, material and building constraints, mirroring the real-world engineering experience of designing solutions within constraints. Three worksheets are provided, for each of two levels, grades K-2 and grades 3-5. The activity scales up to school-wide, district or regional competition scale.

Creating Model Working Lungs: Just Breathe Elementary School Activity
Students explore the inhalation/exhalation process that occurs in the lungs during respiration. Using everyday materials, each student team creates a model pair of lungs.

Chromatography Lab Middle School Activity
To increase students' awareness of possible invisible pollutants in drinking water sources, students perform an exciting lab requiring them to think about how solutions and mixtures exist even in unsuspecting places such as ink. They use alcohol and chromatography paper to separate the components of black and colored marker ink. Students witness first-hand how components of a solution can be separated, even when those individual components are not visible in solution.

Properties of Mixtures vs. Solutions: Mix It Up! Elementary School Lesson
Students are introduced to the distinctive properties of mixtures and solutions. A class demonstration led by the teachers gives students the opportunity to compare and contrast the physical characteristics of a few simple mixtures and solutions. They discuss the separation of mixtures and solutions back into their original components as well as different engineering applications of mixtures and solutions.

Solar Angles and Tracking Systems High School Lesson
Students learn about the daily and annual cycles of solar angles used in power calculations to maximize photovoltaic power generation. They gain an overview of solar tracking systems that improve PV panel efficiency by following the sun through the sky.
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