Most Shared Curriculum

Students explore the physics exploited by engineers in designing today's roller coasters, including potential and kinetic energy, friction and gravity. First, they learn that all true roller coasters are completely driven by the force of gravity and that the conversion between potential and kinetic energy is essential to all roller coasters. Second, they consider the role of friction in slowing down cars in roller coasters. Finally, they examine the acceleration of roller coaster cars as they travel around the track. During the associated activity, students design, build and analyze model roller coasters they make using foam tubing and marbles (as the cars).

Civil engineers design structures such as buildings, dams, highways and bridges. Student teams explore the field of engineering by making bridges using spaghetti as their primary building material. Then they test their bridges to see how much weight they can carry before breaking.

Students simulate the spread of a virus such as HIV through a population by "sharing" (but not drinking) the water in a plastic cup with several classmates. Although invisible, the water in a few of the cups has already be tainted with the "virus" (sodium carbonate). After all the students have shared their liquids, the contents of the cups are tested for the virus with phenolphthalein, a chemical that causes a striking color change in the presence of sodium carbonate. Students then set about trying to determine which of their classmates were the ones originally infected with the virus.

This activity poses the question: What would happen if a meteor or comet impacted Earth? Students simulate an impact in a container of sand using various-sized rocks, all while measuring, recording and graphing results and conclusions. Then students brainstorm ways to prevent an object from hitting the Earth.

Students design and build small catapults to launch candy pieces.

After a discussion about what a parachute is and how it works, students create parachutes using different materials that they think will work best. They test their designs, and then contribute to a class discussion (and possible journal writing) to report which paper materials worked best.

Students build their own small-scale model roller coasters using pipe insulation and marbles, and then analyze them using physics principles learned in the associated lesson. They examine conversions between kinetic and potential energy and frictional effects to design roller coasters that are completely driven by gravity. A class competition using different marbles types to represent different passenger loads determines the most innovative and successful roller coasters.

The “renew-a-bead game” provides youngsters with a quantitative illustration of how non-renewable resources are depleted while renewable resources continue to provide energy. Student pairs remove beads—representing units of renewable and non-renewable energy—from a bag—representing a country. A certain number of beads are removed from the bag each "year." At some point, no non-renewable (fossil fuel) energy beads remain. Since groups/countries have different ratios of renewable and non-renewable energy beads in their bags, they compare the remaining beads and time when they ran out of energy to see the value of utilizing a greater proportion of renewable resources as a sustainable energy approach. A student worksheet with instructions, data collection table and discussion questions is provided.

Students write a biographical sketch of an artist or athlete who lives on the edge, riding the gravity wave, to better understand how these artists and athletes work with gravity and manage risk. Note: The literacy activity is based on physical themes that hasz broad application to our experience in the world — concepts of rhythm, balance, spin, gravity, levity, inertia, momentum, friction, stress and tension.

Students engage in the engineering design process while identifying the relative thermal conductivity of different materials. Students apply their understanding of heat transfer to build an insulator to prevent heat loss or gain from an object. Students practice the engineering design process by building their insulator. At the end, they reflect on the design process and the effectiveness of their product.

Students reinforce their knowledge of the different parts of the digestive system and explore the concept of simulation by developing a pill coating that can withstand the churning actions and acidic environment found in the stomach. Teams test the coating durability by using a clear soda to simulate stomach acid.

Students extend their knowledge of the skeletal system to biomedical engineering design, specifically the concept of artificial limbs and joints. Students relate the skeleton as a structural system, focusing on the leg as structural necessity. They learn about the design considerations involved in the creation of artificial limbs, including materials and sensors.

To learn how friction affects motion, students explore how different textures provide varying amounts of friction to objects moving across them. They build a tool to measure the amount of friction between a note card and various surfaces by measuring the distance that a rubber band stretches. They experiment with a range of materials to determine which provides the least/most friction.

The application of engineering principles is explored in the creation of mobiles. As students create their own mobiles, they take into consideration the forces of gravity and convection air currents. They learn how an understanding of balancing forces is important in both art and engineering design.

In this math activity, students conduct a strength test using modeling clay, creating their own stress vs. strain graphs, which they compare to typical steel and concrete graphs. They learn the difference between brittle and ductile materials and how understanding the strength of materials, especially steel and concrete, is important for engineers who design bridges and structures.