Students discover the scientific basis for the use of inclined planes. Using a spring scale, a bag of rocks and an inclined plane, student groups explore how dragging objects up a slope is easier than lifting them straight up into the air. Also, students are introduced to the scientific method and basic principles of experimentation. To conclude, students imagine and design their own uses for inclined planes.

Students learn about weight and drag forces by making paper helicopters and measuring how adding more weight affects the time it takes for the helicopters to fall to the ground.

Students use a hurricane tracking map to measure the distance from a specific latitude and longitude location of the eye of a hurricane to a city. Then they use the map's scale factor to convert the distance to miles. They also apply the distance formula by creating an x-y coordinate plane on the map. Students are challenged to analyze what data might be used by computer science engineers to write code that generates hurricane tracking models. Then students analyze a MATLAB® computer code that uses the distance formula repetitively to generate a table of data that tracks a hurricane at specific time intervals. Students come to realize that using a computer program to generate the calculations (instead of by hand) is very advantageous for a dynamic situation like tracking storm movements. Their inspection of some MATLAB code helps them understand how it communicates what to do using mathematical formulas, logical instructions and repeated tasks. They also conclude that the example program is too simplistic to really be a useful tool; useful computer model tools must necessarily be much more complex.

Steganography is the science and art of hiding messages in plain sight so only the sender and intended recipient know the existence of a message. Steganography can be characterized as security through obscurity. Through this lesson, students experience a portion of the engineering design process as they research steganography and steganographic methods; identify problems, criteria and constraints; brainstorm possible solutions; and generate ideas. These are the critical first steps in the engineering design process, often overlooked by students who want to get to the "doing" phases—designing, building and testing. In computer science, a thorough design phase makes program implementation much easier and more effective. Students obtain practice with a portion of the design process that may be less exciting, but is just as important as the other steps in the process.

A main concern of shoe engineers is creating shoes that provide the right amount of arch support to prevent (or fix) common gait misalignments that lead to injury. During this activity, students look at their own footprints and determine whether they have either of the two most prominent gait misalignments: overpronation (collapsing arches) or supination (high arches). Knowing the shape of a person's foot, and their natural arch movement is necessary to design shoes to fix these gain alignments.

Students explore material properties by applying some basic principles of heat transfer. They use calorimeters to determine the specific heat of three substances: aluminum, copper and another of their choice. Each substance is cooled in a freezer and then placed in the calorimeter. The temperature change of the water and the substance are used in heat transfer equations to determine the specific heat of each substance. The students compare their calculated values with tabulated data.

Students apply their mathematics and team building skills to explore the concept of rocketry. They learn about design issues faced by aerospace engineers when trying to launch rocketships or satellites in order to land them safely in the ocean, for example. Students learn the value of designing within constraints while brainstorming a rocketry system using provided materials and a specified project budget. Throughout the design process, teamwork is emphasized since the most successful launches occur when groups work effectively to generate creative ideas and solutions to the rocket challenge.

Students gain first-hand experience on how friction affects motion. They build a hovercraft using air from a balloon to levitate a craft made from a compact disc (CD), learning that a bed of air under an object significantly reduces the friction as it slides over a surface.

Students are introduced to a challenge question. Towards answering the question, they generate ideas for what they need to know about medicines and how they move through our bodies, watch a few short videos to gain multiple perspectives, and then learn lecture material to obtain a basic understanding of how antibiotics kill bacteria in the human body. They learn why different forms of medicine (pill, liquid or shot) get into the blood stream at different speeds.

The unit “mole” is used in chemistry as a counting unit for measuring the amount of something. One mole of something has 6.02×1023 units of that thing. The magnitude of the number 6.02×1023 is challenging to imagine. The goal of this lesson is for students to understand just how many particles Avogadro's Number truly represents, or, how big is a mole. This lesson is meant for students currently enrolled in a first or second year chemistry course. This lesson is designed to be completed within one approximately 1 hour class; however, completion of optional activities 4 and 5 may require a longer class period or part of a second class period. This lesson requires only pencil and paper, as the activities suggested in this video place an emphasis on helping students develop their “back of the envelope” estimation skills. In fact, calculators and other measuring devices are explicitly discouraged. However, students may require additional supplies (poster board, colored pencils, markers, crayons, etc.) for the final optional/assessment activity, which involves creating a poster to demonstrate the size of a mole of their favorite macroscopic object.

This video is the second lesson in the How Cold Is Cold? BLOSSOMS series and examines the properties of materials under low temperature conditions. The video consists of a series of fascinating demonstrations with liquid nitrogen, which boils at 77K (-196 C -321 F). These demonstrations include the following: What goes up, may not come down; Is that supposed to be cold? - thermal insulation; Some properties of liquid nitrogen; Making ice cream - the slow way and the fast way; Try not to explode: expansion of liquid nitrogen and the ideal gas law; Making the air cold: phase changes and the affect on volume; No frozen fingers: the changes in mechanical properties; Resistivity at 77K; The magic magnet: the Meissner Effect; Cautions in using liquid nitrogen

This video lesson is part of a two-part series and introduces the concept of temperature. Temperature can be a challenging concept to convey since our perception is tied to words that are relative to our own experience, which varies quite a lot. A short activity to be performed in the classroom shows the need for a temperature scale since qualitative descriptions are not adequate. Temperatures that vary from the hottest to coldest recorded temperatures on earth are shown in advance of introducing the boiling temperatures of a number of cryogenic liquids.

Students learn about geotechnical engineers and their use of physical properties, such as soil density, to determine the ability of various soils to offer support to foundations. In an associated activity, students determine the bulk densities of soil samples, and assess their suitability to support foundations.

Students determine the mass and volume of soil samples and calculate the density of the soils. They use this information to determine the suitability of the soil to support a building foundation.

Students learn more about forces by examining the force of gravitational attraction. They observe how objects fall and measure the force of gravitational attraction upon objects.

During this lesson, students start to see the data structure they will use to store their images, towards finding a solution to this unit's Grand Challenge. Students are introduced to two-dimensional arrays and vector classes. Then they are guided to see that a vector class is the most efficient way of storing the data for their images. Grand Challenge: To write a program to simulate peripheral vision by merging two images.

Student teams design and conduct quality-control experiments to test the reliability of several ultraviolet protection factors. Students use UV-detecting beads in their experimental designs to test the effectiveness of various types of sunscreens and sunblock. For example, they might examine zinc oxide nanoparticles versus traditional organic sun protection factors. UV intensity is quantitatively measured by UVA and UVB Vernier sensors, and students record and graph their results. By designing and conducting this experiment, students compare various substances, while learning about quality control.

While learning about volcanoes, magma and lava flows, students learn about the properties of liquid movement, coming to understand viscosity and other factors that increase and decrease liquid flow. They also learn about lava composition and its risk to human settlements.

Students determine the coefficient of restitution (or the elasticity) for super balls. Working in pairs, they drop balls from a meter height and determine how high they bounce. They measure, record and repeat the process to gather data to calculate average bounce heights and coefficients of elasticity. Then they extrapolate to determine the height the ball would bounce if dropped from much higher heights.

The aim of this lesson is to introduce the concepts of heat and temperature, which many students find confusing. During the lesson, students will be asked to explore and discuss situations where even though the same amount of heat is absorbed by several substances, the increase in temperature of the substances is different. This video lesson presents a series of stories relating to heat and temperature, beginning with a visit to a factory where gamat oil is produced. In the video, a man dips his finger into boiling gamat oil yet feels no pain. The scene will draw students’ attention and raise their curiosity about how this is possible. Students will also carry out several experiments to compare and relate the situations where the same amount of heat absorbed by substances will result in different temperatures. By the end of this lesson, students will understand the term “specific heat capacity” and will recognize the difference between a high or low specific heat capacity. They will also understand the term “thermal diffusivity” and how this relates to the topic of the lesson. This lesson offers some authentic learning experiences where students will have the opportunity to relate the concept of heat and temperature to everyday situations. It will take about 50 minutes to complete - however, you may want to divide the lesson into two classes if the activities require more time.