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Lesson: Made to Sail

sailboat3In this lesson, students in grades 2 – 7 use simple materials to design and make model sailboats that must stay upright and sail straight in a testing tank. They will learn the basic components of a ship and how design represents a tradeoff between speed, stability, and ease of handling.

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Move Like a Shark

MIT's SoFi robotic fishMiddle school students take on the role of marine biologists to investigate how sharks move in three-dimensional space (3-D). Understanding the mathematics behind shark movement will inform the design of a prototype joystick for a robotic exploration shark used to collect oceanic data.

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Congressional App Challenge

Congressional App Challenge studentsMiddle and high school students nationwide create apps for desktop PCs, mobile devices, or other platforms in this annual Congressional initiative aimed at engaging America’s youth in computer science and STEM.

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The Great Gravity Escape

water balloonsStudents in grades 6 to 8 use water balloons and string to understand how the force of gravity between two objects and the velocity of a spacecraft can balance to form an orbit. They see that when the velocity becomes too great for gravity to hold the spacecraft in orbit, the object escapes the orbit and travels further away from the planet.

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Build a Kicking Machine

PBS Design Squad Kicking Machine iconStudents in grades 4 to 9 learn about projectile motion by designing, building, and testing a machine that can kick a Ping-Pong ball into a cup lying on its side 12 inches away.

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MS STEM Teachers Needed for NGSS Study

middle school girls in USDA MEDB's 4-H STEM program test boat designsPre-service and in-service middle school science teachers are sought for a graduate research project aimed at developing an assessment instrument to improve the teaching of engineering practices and incorporation of design in science classrooms, as outlined in the Next Generation Science Standards and other state science-education reforms.

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Tunnel Through!

tunnel blasted through mesaStudents in grades 6 to 8 apply their knowledge about mountains and rocks to transportation engineering to develop a model mountain tunnel from that simulates the principles behind real-life engineering design. Teams design and create model tunnels through a clay mountain, working within design constraints and testing for success; the tunnels must meet specific design requirements and withstand a certain load.

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Build a Telegraph Tapper

telegraph tapperStudents in grades 4 to 8 or higher learn the basics of electricity and sound by designing and building a working telegraph system using batteries, wire, and other simple parts. They then use their telegraphs – one of history’s most important inventions – to send and receive messages.

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Measuring Water Quality to Assess Human Impact

HackingSTEM water quality samplingMiddle school students explore how fertilizers and other solids affect water quality by building and using sensors to measure the electrical conductivity of water samples. They then create data tables and investigate possible sources of pollutants using digital visualization tools.

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