Most Shared Curriculum

Students hone their understanding of distance and displacement, and how to distinguish between the two. The level of difficulty becomes greater as students move through each section of the activity. This activity can help students to visualize and apply the concepts of distance and displacement to their everyday lives. Students practice measuring distance and displacement by mapping out their routes to school, and by making their own routes that will then be student tested. This activity serves as a good way to reaffirm physics concepts, and as a way for students to practice skills such as measuring and collecting time.

Students learn about the advantages and disadvantages of the greenhouse effect. They construct their own miniature greenhouses and explore how their designs take advantage of heat transfer processes to create controlled environments. They record and graph measurements, comparing the greenhouse indoor and outdoor temperatures over time. Students are also introduced to global issues such as greenhouse gas emissions and their relationship to global warming.

Fresh water is a limited and valuable natural resource, and engineers play a key role in designing systems that provide fresh water to everyone. In this activity, students learn about water conservation and how water is cycled naturally on Earth and through the wastewater management system. Using parts of the engineering design process, students design a system that allows blackwater to be recycled at the place of use (for example, near a toilet or home as opposed to at a wastewater treatment plant. Students then explain how this recycled water could then be reused as effluent toilet water.

After conducting the associated activity, students are introduced to the material behavior of elastic solids. Engineering stress and strain are defined and their importance in designing devices and systems is explained. How engineers measure, calculate and interpret properties of elastic materials is addressed. Students calculate stress, strain and modulus of elasticity, and learn about the typical engineering stress-strain diagram (graph) of an elastic material.

It is important that teams capture all team member ideas using an open discussion. This activity allows everyone to share the responsibility of both speaking and listening during such a discussion and helps all ideas be heard and documented.

In this lesson, students learn the basics of the analysis of forces engineers perform at the truss joints to calculate the strength of a truss bridge. This method is known as the “method of joints.” Finding the tensions and compressions using this method will be necessary to solve systems of linear equations where the size depends on the number of elements and nodes in the truss. The method of joints is the core of a graphic interface created by the author in Google Sheets that students can use to estimate the tensions-compressions on the truss elements under given loads, as well as the maximum load a wood truss structure may hold (depending on the specific wood the truss is made of) and the thickness of its elements.

Students learn how to build simple piezoelectric generators to power LEDs. To do this, they incorporate into a circuit a piezoelectric element that converts movements they make (mechanical energy) into electrical energy, which is stored in a capacitor (short-term battery). Once enough energy is stored, they flip a switch to light up an LED. Students also learn how much (surprisingly little) energy can be converted using the current state of technology for piezoelectric materials.

Students design, build, and test mousetrap cars as they apply the Engineering Design Process (EDP) in this individual engineering design challenge. After researching design ideas, students build and test their mousetrap car prototypes (first model). Students then iterate (modify) their design and make any necessary modifications. While students work individually to make their mousetrap cars, they should collaborate with their peers to share information and make suggestions on how to improve and/or fix each other’s initial constructions. Students test their cars in a friendly class Mousetrap Car Competition to determine which car design travels the farthest distance (Note: students can also test which car travels a set distance the fastest).

Students practice the initial steps involved in an engineering design challenge. They begin by reviewing the steps of the engineering design loop and discussing the client need for the project. Next, they identify a relevant context, define the problem within their design teams, and examine the project's requirements and constraints. (Note: Conduct this activity in the context of a design project that students are working on, which could be a challenge determined by the teacher, brainstormed with the class, or the example project challenge provided [to design a prosthetic arm that can perform a mechanical function].)

In the presence of water, citric acid and sodium bicarbonate (aka baking soda) react to form sodium citrate, water, and carbon dioxide. Students investigate this endothermic reaction. They test a stoichiometric version of the reaction followed by testing various perturbations on the stoichiometric version in which each reactant (citric acid, sodium bicarbonate and water) is strategically doubled or halved to create a matrix of the effect on the reaction. By analyzing the test matrix data, they determine the optimum quantities to use in their own production companies to minimize material cost and maximize carbon dioxide production. They use their test data to "scale-up" the system from a quart-sized ziplock bag to a reaction tank equal to the volume of their classroom. They collect data on reaction temperature and carbon dioxide production. More advanced students are challenged to theoretically predict the results using stoichiometry.

Students are introduced to Pascal's law, Archimedes' principle and Bernoulli's principle. Fundamental definitions, equations, practice problems and engineering applications are supplied. Students can use the associated activities to strengthen their understanding of relationships between the previous concepts and real-life examples. A PowerPoint® presentation, practice problems and grading rubric are provided.

Students construct paper recombinant plasmids to simulate the methods genetic engineers use to create modified bacteria. They learn what role enzymes, DNA and genes play in the modification of organisms. For the particular model they work on, they isolate a mammal insulin gene and combine it with a bacteria's gene sequence (plasmid DNA) for production of the protein insulin.

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.

Students work as civil engineering teams in small groups to design and construct model towers out of paper with minimal teacher guidance on completing the challenge. Each team is given limited supplies (three sheets of paper, tape, and scissors) and limited time (one class period), paralleling the real-world resource/cost limitations faced by engineers. Teams aim to build their towers for maximum height and stability to withstand a simulated lateral "wind" load.

Students apply high school-level differential calculus and physics to the design of two-dimensional roller coasters in which the friction force is considered, as explained in the associated lesson. In a challenge the mirrors real-world engineering, the designed roller coaster paths must be made from at least five differentiable functions that are put together such that the resulting piecewise curving path is differentiable at all points. Once designed mathematically, teams build and test small-sized prototype models of the exact designs using foam pipe wrap insulation as the roller coaster track channel with marbles as the ride carts. Project constraints students must consider include: initial cart velocity of zero (at the highest point), and final path end velocity of zero. The design must be efficient enough that the initial potential energy of the body is sufficient for it to complete the entire path. To achieve an efficient design, students use a formula obtained in the associated lesson—one that gives the velocity of a spherical body rolling on a curved path when friction is present. This equation considers the body’s energy lost due to friction, and is used to estimate the maximum height the marble may reach after rolling from a hill. Students use Excel® to make these calculations and graph the designed path and velocities. To conclude, teams summarize their procedures, designs, results, and theory-vs.-reality experiences in a slide or video presentation to their classmates, including their small-scale physical models. This activity and its associated lesson are designed for AP Calculus. A pre-quiz, PowerPoint® presentation, spreadsheet calculations/graphs (with and without calculus), and student instructions/grading rubric are provided.