Using spaghetti and marshmallows, students in grades 5 – 7 experiment with different structures to determine which ones can handle the greatest amount of load. Their experiments help them understand compression and tension forces in relation to the strength of structures.

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Filed under: Class Activities, Grades 6-8 | 10 Comments »

Tags: Building Design, Civil Engineering, Team-building skills

Students write a biographical sketch of an artist or athlete who lives on the edge, riding the gravity wave, to better understand how these artists and athletes work with gravity and manage risk.

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Filed under: Class Activities, Grades 6-8 | Comments Off on Report Writing: Athletes and Gravity

Tags: Atheletes, Gravity, Lesson Plan

Students create a parachute using different materials they think will work best. They test their designs then join a class discussion and possible journal writing to evaluate which paper material worked best.

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Filed under: Grades 6-8, Lesson Plans | Comments Off on Lesson: Design a Parachute

Tags: Aerodynamics, Aerospace Engineering

Students read news reports and first-person accounts to imagine what it would be like to be in a blackout in a large city. They follow news reports as if in real-time, keep weblogs or journals, take on different roles, then use their journal accounts to create a play or screenplay.

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Filed under: Grades 6-8, Lesson Plans | Comments Off on Blackout!

In this activity, students will gain a basic understanding of an electrical circuit – the basis of electrical engineering. Students build a wire circuit and pass a paperclip through a maze, trying not to touch the wire.

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Filed under: Grades 6-8, Lesson Plans | Comments Off on Wire Maze

Students learn how environmental engineers monitor water quality in resource use and design. They employ environmental indicators to assess the water quality of a nearby stream, and make general observations of water quality, as well as count the number of macroinvertabrates. They use the information collected to create a scale to rate the stream’s water quality. Finally, class members compare their numbers and discuss and defend their results.

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Filed under: Grades 6-8, Lesson Plans | Comments Off on Stream Consciousness

Students learn a simple technique for quantifying the amount of photosynthesis that occurs in a given period of time, using a common water plant (Elodea). They can use this technique to compare the amounts of photosynthesis that occur under conditions of low and high light levels. Before the experiment, students come up with a well-worded hypothesis to be tested. After the experiment, students pool their data to get a large sample size, determine the measures of central tendency of the class data, then graph and interpret the results.

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Filed under: Grades 6-8, Grades K-5, Lesson Plans | Comments Off on Bubbling Plants

This activity introduces students to the concept of the engineering design process and how to apply it. They first receive background instruction about biomedical engineering or bioengineering. Then they learn about material selection and material properties through a guide created for them. Students then break into small groups and brainstorm. Each group is assigned a specific design problem, is given materials, and is asked to create a prototype. To finish, they communicate their solution through a poster presentation.

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Filed under: Grades 6-8, Lesson Plans | Comments Off on Broken Bones

Students conduct several simple lab activities to learn about the five fundamental load types that can act on structures: tension, compression, shear, bending, and torsion. In this activity, students will play the role of molecules in a beam subject to various loading schemes.

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Filed under: Grades 6-8, Lesson Plans | Comments Off on Forces on the Human Molecule