Students complete a series of six short investigations involving magnets to learn more about their properties. Students also discuss engineering uses for magnets and brainstorm examples of magnets in use in their everyday lives.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
This video segment from Wild Europe: "Wild Arctic" explores the struggle for survival in one of Earth's most extreme environments.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
In this adapted ZOOM video segment, cast members get hands-on in the recycling process by using old newspapers to make new paper.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Diagram/Illustration
This video segment from NOVA: A Desert Place describes the physical characteristics and organisms that define the desert biome.
Material Type: Lecture
This is a task from the Illustrative Mathematics website that is one part of a complete illustration of the standard to which it is aligned. Each task has at least one solution and some commentary that addresses important aspects of the task and its potential use.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
This site helps students see how plants and animals interact to accomplish pollination. Students (Grades 3-8) identify plant and animal parts involved in pollination, connections between pollination and food production, relationships between pollinators and the plants they pollinate, and ways flowers have adapted to encourage pollination.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
In this creative roleplay activity, learners will explore the various processes of the water cycle using movement, sound, and props to aid in comprehension. Learners will understand that water changes forms throughout the water cycle, and that this cycle runs continuously throughout all the cycles at the same time. This standards-based lesson, which is great for the classroom, camps, or afterschool programs, includes roleplay cards and ideas for props.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Game, Lesson Plan, Simulation
Students are introduced to sound energy concepts and how engineers use sound energy. Through hands-on activities and demonstrations, students examine how we know sound exists by listening to and seeing sound waves. They learn to describe sound in terms of its pitch, volume and frequency. They explore how sound waves move through liquids, solids and gases. They also identify the different pitches and frequencies, and create high- and low-pitch sound waves.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
Students examine the existence of sound by listening to and seeing sound waves while conducting a set of simple activities as a class or in pairs at stations. Students describe sound in terms of its pitch, volume and frequency. They use this knowledge to discuss how engineers study sound waves to help people who cannot hear or talk.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
To further their understanding of sound energy, students identify the different pitches and frequencies created by a vibrating ruler and a straw kazoo. They create high- and low-pitch sound waves.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
In this video segment adapted from Design Squadí_í_íŹa PBS TV series featuring high school contestants tackling engineering challengesí_í_íŹlearn about the fundamentals of sound as student teams create percussive and stringed instruments for a local band.
Material Type: Lecture
In this video segment adapted from ZOOM, the cast shows how the 34 steps in their Rube Goldberg invention use everything from gravity to carbon dioxide gas in order to accomplish one simple task: pouring a glass of milk.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
This ZOOM video segment shows how to create a self-contained environment and explores evaporation, condensation, and precipitation.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Diagram/Illustration, Interactive
The purpose of this lesson is to introduce students to the basic elements of our Earth's crust: rocks, soils and minerals. They learn how we categorize rocks, soils and minerals and how they are literally the foundation for our civilization. Students also explore how engineers use rocks, soils and minerals to create the buildings, roads, vehicles, electronics, chemicals, and other objects we use to enhance our lives.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
The purpose of this activity is to demonstrate the importance of rocks, soils and minerals in engineering and how using the right material for the right job is important. The students build three different sand castles and test them for strength and resistance to weathering. Then, they discuss how the buildings are different and what engineers need to think about when using rocks, soils and minerals for construction.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
This video segment adapted from NOVA uses animation to show the relationship between the movement of a tectonic plate and whether volcanoes on the Hawaiian Islands are active or dormant.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Diagram/Illustration
Build circuits with resistors, light bulbs, batteries, and switches and take measurements with laboratory equipment like the realistic ammeter and voltmeter.
Material Type: Simulation
Students explore the biosphere's environments and ecosystems, learning along the way about the plants, animals, resources and natural cycles of our planet. Over the course of lessons 2-6, students use their growing understanding of various environments and the engineering design process to design and create their own model biodome ecosystems - exploring energy and nutrient flows, basic needs of plants and animals, and decomposers. Students learn about food chains and food webs. They are introduced to the roles of the water, carbon and nitrogen cycles. They test the effects of photosynthesis and transpiration. Students are introduced to animal classifications and interactions, including carnivore, herbivore, omnivore, predator and prey. They learn about biomimicry and how engineers often imitate nature in the design of new products. As everyday applications are interwoven into the lessons, students consider why a solid understanding of one's environment and the interdependence within ecosystems can inform the choices we make and the way we engineer our communities.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
Students are introduced to natural disasters, and learn the difference between natural hazards and natural disasters. They discover the many types of natural hazards avalanche, earthquake, flood, forest fire, hurricane, landslide, thunderstorm, tornado, tsunami and volcano as well as specific examples of natural disasters. Students also explore why understanding these natural events is important to engineers and everyone's survival on our planet.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
In this video segment from NOVA scienceNOW, learn about the effects of gravity as astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson falls through a virtual hole through Earth's center.
Material Type: Lecture
