At this point in the unit, students have learned about Pascal's law, Archimedes' principle, Bernoulli's principle, and why above-ground storage tanks are of major concern in the Houston Ship Channel and other coastal areas. In this culminating activity, student groups act as engineering design teams to derive equations to determine the stability of specific above-ground storage tank scenarios with given tank specifications and liquid contents. With their floatation analyses completed and the stability determined, students analyze the tank stability in specific storm conditions. Then, teams are challenged to come up with improved storage tank designs to make them less vulnerable to uplift, displacement and buckling in storm conditions. Teams present their analyses and design ideas in short class presentations.

Students are provided with an introduction to above-ground storage tanks, specifically how and why they are used in the Houston Ship Channel. The introduction includes many photographic examples of petrochemical tank failures during major storms and describes the consequences in environmental pollution and costs to disrupted businesses and lives, as well as the lack of safety codes and provisions to better secure the tanks in coastal regions regularly visited by hurricanes. Students learn how the concepts of Archimedes' principle and Pascal's law act out in the form of the uplifting and buckling seen in the damaged and destroyed tanks, which sets the stage for the real-world engineering challenge presented in the associated activity to design new and/or improved storage tanks that can survive storm conditions.

This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to teach fourth graders about multi-step addition of weights with compound units (metric units) - word problems.

This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to teach fourth graders about adding compound units in years and months.

This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to give fourth graders an overview of weight-based english-unit word problems.

This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to give fourth graders an overview of measuring capacity (metric units).

This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to teach fourth graders about solving multi-step weight problems with subtraction (metric units) - word problems.

This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to teach fourth graders about using a scale and multi-step calculations to find weight in grams i.

This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to give fourth graders an overview of weight in metric units.

This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to teach fourth graders about two-step subtraction of weights (english units) - word problems.

This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to give fourth graders an overview of addition and subtraction of time.

This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to teach fourth graders about lengths of specific segments (metric units).

This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to teach fourth graders about adding or subtracting lengths in one step (english units).

This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to teach fourth graders about adding of compound units of length (english units).

This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to teach fourth graders about adding capacities in compound units (english units).

This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to teach fourth graders about adding unit lengths in one step (english units).

This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to teach fourth graders about one step metric capacity with addition and subtraction - word problems.

This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to teach fourth graders about addition of capacities - word problems.

Air pressure is pushing on us all the time although we do not usually notice it. In this activity, students learn about the units of pressure and get a sense of just how much air pressure is pushing on them.

This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to teach fourth graders about calculating distance in meters.