Most of the flavoring in gum is due to the sugar or other sweetener it contains. As gum is chewed, the sugar dissolves and is swallowed. After a piece of gum loses its flavor, it can be left to dry at room temperature and then the difference between its initial (unchewed) mass and its chewed mass can be used to calculate the percentage of sugar in the gum. This demonstration experiment is used to generate new questions about gums and their ingredients, and students can then design and execute new experiments based on their own questions.

Students design and build a mechanical arm that lifts and moves an empty 12-ounce soda can using hydraulics for power. Small design teams (1-2 students each) design and build a single axis for use in the completed mechanical arm. One team designs and builds the grasping hand, another team the lifting arm, and a third team the rotation base. The three groups must work to communicate effectively through written and verbal communication and sketches.

My goal is to merge New York State standards with Common Core Standards and Integrated Algebra Regent Standards for our 8th grade curriculum.

While building and testing model rockets fueled by antacid tablets, students are introduced to the basic physics concepts on how rockets work. Students revise and improve their initial designs. Note: This activity is similar to the elementary-level film canister rockets activity, but adapted for middle school students.

Through an overview of some of the environmental challenges facing the growing and evolving country of China today, students learn about the effects of indoor and outdoor air pollution that China is struggling to curb with the help of engineers and scientists. This includes the sources of particulate matter 2.5 and carbon dioxide, and air pollution impacts on the health of people and the environment.

In past times, ocean navigators tossed a piece of wood over the side of their ships and noted how long until the ship passed the wood. They used this time measurement and the length of the ship to calculate their speed and estimate how far they had traveled. In this activity, students act the part of a GPS signal traveling to the receiver to learn how travel time is converted to distance.

Using spaghetti and marshmallows, students experiment with different structures to determine which ones are able to handle the greatest amount of load. Their experiments help them to further understand the effects that compression and tension forces have with respect to the strength of structures. Spaghetti cannot hold much tension or compression; therefore, it breaks very easily. Marshmallows handle compression well, but do not hold up to tension.

With the assistance of a few teacher demonstrations (online animation, using a radiometer and rubbing hands), students review the concept of heat transfer through convection, conduction and radiation. Then they apply an understanding of these ideas as they use wireless temperature probes to investigate the heating capacity of different materials sand and water under heat lamps (or outside in full sunshine). The experiment models how radiant energy drives convection within the atmosphere and oceans, thus producing winds and weather conditions, while giving students the hands-on opportunity to understand the value of remote-sensing capabilities designed by engineers. Students collect and record temperature data on how fast sand and water heat and cool. Then they create multi-line graphs to display and compare their data, and discuss the need for efficient and reliable engineer-designed tools like wireless sensors in real-world applications.

Students teams each assemble a wing component of a lifter with the goal to test the lifter wing and measure the force exerted when high voltage is applied to it. After an introduction to torque and its use to measure force, students calculate the change in the torque when a high voltage is applied to the wing portion of the lifter using a fulcrum. Once a group has assembled its wing portion, the teacher tests it with a high-voltage power supply, marking the change in the balance so that students can calculate the force. Then groups adjust the gap between the electrodes and re-measure the force. Groups each repeat this process three times, which allows students to estimate the magnitude of the force as a function of the gap between the electrodes.

Using the LEGO MINDSTORMS(TM) NXT kit, students construct experiments to measure the time it takes a free falling body to travel a specified distance. Students use the touch sensor, rotational sensor, and the NXT brick to measure the time of flight for the falling object at different release heights. After the object is released from its holder and travels a specified distance, a touch sensor is triggered and time of object's descent from release to impact at touch sensor is recorded and displayed on the screen of the NXT. Students calculate the average velocity of the falling object from each point of release, and construct a graph of average velocity versus time. They also create a best fit line for the graph using spreadsheet software. Students use the slope of the best fit line to determine their experimental g value and compare this to the standard value of g.

Students design systems that use microbes to break down a water pollutant (in this case, sugar). They explore how temperature affects the rate of pollutant decomposition.

Students will breed fruit flies through several generations and record their data using mathematical models in order to demonstrate the inheritance of trait variations.

(Nota: Esta es una traducción de un recurso educativo abierto creado por el Departamento de Educación del Estado de Nueva York (NYSED) como parte del proyecto "EngageNY" en 2013. Aunque el recurso real fue traducido por personas, la siguiente descripción se tradujo del inglés original usando Google Translate para ayudar a los usuarios potenciales a decidir si se adapta a sus necesidades y puede contener errores gramaticales o lingüísticos. La descripción original en inglés también se proporciona a continuación.)

En los grados 6 y 7, los estudiantes trabajaron con datos que involucraban una sola variable. El módulo 6 presenta a los estudiantes a bivariando datos. Los estudiantes se introducen a una función como una regla que asigna exactamente un valor a cada entrada. En este módulo, los estudiantes usan su comprensión de las funciones para modelar las posibles relaciones de datos bivariados. Este módulo es importante para establecer una base para los estudiantes que trabajan en álgebra en el grado 9.

English Description:
In Grades 6 and 7, students worked with data involving a single variable.  Module 6 introduces students to bivariate data.  Students are introduced to a function as a rule that assigns exactly one value to each input.  In this module, students use their understanding of functions to model the possible relationships of bivariate data.  This module is important in setting a foundation for students’ work in algebra in Grade 9.

This activity illustrates the interrelationship between science and engineering in the context of extinction prevention. There are two parts to the activity. The first part challenges students to think like scientists as they generate reports on endangered species and give presentations worthy of a news channel or radio broadcast. The second part puts students in the shoes of engineers, designing ways to help the endangered species.

Students come to see the exponential trend demonstrated through the changing temperatures measured while heating and cooling a beaker of water. This task is accomplished by first appealing to students' real-life heating and cooling experiences, and by showing an example exponential curve. After reviewing the basic principles of heat transfer, students make predictions about the heating and cooling curves of a beaker of tepid water in different environments. During a simple teacher demonstration/experiment, students gather temperature data while a beaker of tepid water cools in an ice water bath, and while it heats up in a hot water bath. They plot the data to create heating and cooling curves, which are recognized as having exponential trends, verifying Newton's result that the change in a sample's temperature is proportional to the difference between the sample's temperature and the temperature of the environment around it. Students apply and explore how their new knowledge may be applied to real-world engineering applications.

The intent of clarifying statements is to provide additional guidance for educators to communicate the intent of the standard to support the future development of curricular resources and assessments aligned to the 2021 math standards.  Clarifying statements can be in the form of succinct sentences or paragraphs that attend to one of four types of clarifications: (1) Student Experiences; (2) Examples; (3) Boundaries; and (4) Connection to Math Practices.

Using paper, paper clips and tape, student teams design flying/falling devices to stay in the air as long as possible and land as close as possible to a given target. Student teams use the steps of the engineering design process to guide them through the initial conception, evaluation, testing and re-design stages. The activity culminates with a classroom competition and scoring to evaluate how each team's design performed.

In this activity, students will learn how water can be polluted by algal blooms. They will grow algae with different concentrations of fertilizer or nutrients and analyze their results as environmental engineers working to protect a local water resource.

Many factors influence the success and survival rate of a population of living things. Explore several factors that can determine the survival of a population of sheep in this NetLogo model. Start with a model of unlimited grass available to the sheep and watch what happens to the sheep population! Next try to keep the population under control by removing sheep periodically. Change the birthrate, grass regrowth rate, and the amount of energy rabbits get from the grass to keep a stable population.

Students are introduced to the physical concept of the colors of rainbows as light energy in the form of waves with distinct wavelengths, but in a different manner than traditional kaleidoscopes. Looking at different quantum dot solutions, they make observations and measurements, and graph their data. They come to understand how nanoparticles interact with absorbing photons to produce colors. They learn the dependence of particle size and color wavelength and learn about real-world applications for using these colorful liquids.