Exploring Light With Holographic Chocolate Middle School Activity
Published on March 8, 2024
Students explore how light interacts with matter. Using the principles of spectroscopy, they learn how light can cause molecules to react by entering into an excited state. This activity addresses diffraction grating, which is in a spectrometer (a specialized instrument used to track and measure the path of different wavelengths of light). This instrument is used in many applications that study light-matter interactions. Students apply a diffraction grating to chocolate, allowing them to observe the ray of light being separated into different colors and wavelengths and how light can interact differently with common materials by altering their properties. Students further explore light by designing light-powered products and presenting their designs to the class.
Ready, Set, Solar! Design a Solar Powered Car Elementary School Activity
Published on March 7, 2024
Students learn that solar energy is a renewable energy source from the sun that can be collected and used to power different items, and that solar panels allow us to gather this energy in one place and use it as electricity. As a renewable resource, the sun provides a clean and abundant source of energy that can help reduce pollution and harm to the environment. To model this process, students use a solar powered rover kit to make a car out of recycled materials. In groups of two, students use the Engineering Design Process (EDP) and follow each of the steps to complete, test, redesign, and retest their cars. Students test their car in the sun with the panel at two different angles and then once in the shade. What worked best? Then the race is on!
A Slippery Situation: Oil Spill Cleanup and Polarity Middle School Activity
Published on March 7, 2024
Students learn about the concept of polarity and mixing through the phenomenon of oil separating from water by simulating an oil spill that demonstrates the impact of these molecular qualities on the environment. In the first part of the activity, students get familiar with the concept of polarity and how it causes oil to float on water through molecular models and demonstrations. The second part entails a simulation of an oil spill in the ocean, where students are given a variety of tools and will engineer their own solutions to clean up the spill through trial and testing. Finally, they discuss the real-world methods used to clean up oil spills, and their impact on the environment.
Tinkercad Circuits & EV Motor Workshop High School Activity
Published on February 29, 2024
Students follow a guided engineering skills workshop presentation using the free online Tinkercad web app learning the basics about circuits, using a simulator to create circuits, and applying these skills to build a model EV electric motor. Tinkercad offers students an opportunity to build their circuit and electronics skills. Teachers can create and manage classes, activities, etc. in Tinkercad to enable students to explore circuits in both in-school and online learning environments.
Tinkercad 3D Design & EV Concept Car Workshop High School Activity
Published on December 6, 2023
Students follow a guided engineering skills workshop presentation using the free online Tinkercad web app to design a model 3D EV concept car design. Tinkercad offers students an introduction to learning basic computer-aided design (CAD) skills. Teachers can create and manage classes, activities, etc. in Tinkercad to enable students to explore CAD in both in-school and online learning environments.
Environmental Justice StoryMap Collection High School Activity
Published on December 5, 2023
The series of five Environmental Justice (EJ) StoryMaps explores the connections between air quality, transportation, and engineering. The EJ StoryMap collection provides background knowledge from reliable sources to build students’ understanding of concepts presented in a visual and interactive format.
Periodic Table Intro: Parts of a Whole High School Activity
Published on October 4, 2023
The Periodic Table is an icon of organizing for chemistry as well as other disciplines including chemical engineering. The table also represents an important way to understand how to sort and identify objects based on specific criteria. In this activity, students submit a picture of a unique “one-of-a-kind” item they own. They then create diagrams that sort these various items based on categories of their choosing. They discuss the process as a class, drawing upon similarities to the creation of the Periodic Table: identifying individual characteristics of an object/element, and sorting objects/elements into rows and columns based on similar characteristics.
Exploring the Earth’s Critical Zone with Edible Model Cross Sections Elementary School Activity
Published on September 28, 2023
The Critical Zone is the layer of the Earth that extends from bedrock to treetops. It is within this layer that rock, soil, water, air, and living organisms interact and shape the Earth's surface. It is also here where all known life on Earth exists! In this activity, students learn about and explore the critical zone by creating their own cross-section out of food treats.
Heat Transfer in Solar Dryers High School Activity
Published on September 27, 2023
Understanding the concepts of conduction, convection and radiation help engineers design and build systems that employ the process of heat transfer. In this activity, students use a hair dryer, hot plate and a heat lamp to show the three types of heat transfer and how these processes can be used in agricultural engineering applications. They compare the time it takes for each process and, as they learn about these processes, students delve deeper into why there are time differences for each.
Python Conditionals Using AI Technology High School Activity
Published on September 25, 2023
One way for engineers to be effective in creating designs is to understand technology tools support their efforts. These technology tools themselves are often designed by engineers! In this activity, students utilize Google's Colab and Google's Bard to master writing “if” statements in Python while also analyzing the effectiveness of an AI tool to define future success criteria for engineers developing tools like Bard. Engaging in various activities, students delve into the significance of conditionals, understanding how they enhance code readability and enable more innovative programming approaches. Moreover, students venture into exploring the effectiveness of AI technologies in programming, providing insightful suggestions for refining and engineering future AI tools.
Chasing the Sun Elementary School Activity
Published on September 25, 2023
Solar energy has almost limitless potential to power our needs, and best of all it is exceptionally clean! However, the challenge lays in how to harness that energy in an effective manner—and that’s where engineers come in. In this activity, students learn how the sun can help us make electricity with a device called a solar panel. They are then presented with the challenge of the stationary solar panel versus the moving sun. Using the behavior of a sunflower following the sun throughout the day, students build upon and apply their knowledge of solar patterns, solar energy and plant needs as they engineer model solar panels that move to follow the path of the sun.
To Infinity and Beyond: The Amazing Hydrogels High School Activity
Published on September 21, 2023
This activity provides students with the background necessary to understand chelation—a type of bonding of ions and molecules to metal ions—to create hydrogels. During the activity, students use sodium alginate, an extract from brown seaweed, to create hydrogels. By using alginate-based compounds (in other words, compounds extracted from brown algae), these hydrogels are also nontoxic and non-inflammatory. All these properties make the alginates ideal for applications in pharmaceuticals, wound care, hygiene, and optometry.
Recycle Home Toilet Water High School Activity
Published on August 30, 2023
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.
Roll ‘n’ Roller Coaster Elementary School Activity
Published on August 25, 2023
Roller coasters are one of the most thrilling ways to feel engineering in action! In this activity, students act as mechanical, civil, and structural engineers as they design and build a roller coaster with their teammates that allows a table tennis ball to roll through the entire model unassisted. As students design and build their roller coaster, they will learn about kinetic and potential energy. Students explain that when the ball is placed at the top of the ramp, it has potential energy (stored energy). Once the ball is released, the potential energy is changed into kinetic energy (energy of motion). Students also identify the role that friction plays in stopping the ball. As students experience the engineering design process and create multiple iterations of their design, they will discover the key to allow the table tennis ball to gain enough momentum to cycle through the roller coaster unassisted is to create an initial slope that’s steep enough to allow the ball to cycle through.
Gel Engineering Elementary School Activity
Published on August 24, 2023
Which properties of matter work best in a particular design? In this activity, students explore the physical properties of matter and experience the engineering design process by designing, creating, and testing gels. Their challenge is to design gels to exhibit a specific property of matter, such as magnetism, conductivity, or high density. In this collaborative, hands-on activity students become engineers who design their own gels as a team.