Lesson: Landfills and Contamination
Posted on April 19th, 2010 by ASEE
What happens to garbage? In this lesson, students grades 9-12 derive the answer by building their own landfill. While observing how household waste can leach into soil and groundwater, they also learn the importance of well supervised, sanitary disposal sites.
Filed under: Grades 9-12, Lesson Plans | 2 Comments »
Tags: Clean Water, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Protection Agency, Environmental science, Grades 9-12, Lesson Plan, Waste management
In this activity, students in grades 3-5 collect, categorize, weigh and analyze classroom solid waste. The class collects waste for a week, and then student groups spend a day sorting and analyzing the garbage with respect to recyclable and non-recyclable items. Students will discuss ways that engineers have helped to reduce solid waste.
In this activity, students determine the path traveled by sound waves as they reflect from room surfaces and the time it takes to travel each path. Assuming the role of acoustic engineers, students gain an overview of sound mechanics that involves rate calculations, working with number systems, and a bit of geometry.
Who hasn’t been frustrated by hard-to-open, clumsy containers?
This activity for grades 6-8 provides students with the opportunity to create a food package for a specific food. The students have three components to focus on in the design of their food package. The package will have to keep the food clean, protect or aid in the physical and chemical changes that can take place in the food, and identify the food appealingly.
The Learning Roomba educational toolkit attempts to address robotics usability issues by keeping total costs down while making the tools as easy to use as possible. This toolkit is a collection of resources and tools to facilitate teaching robotics to pre-college students. Through these resources, students can learn about science, math, and engineering topics in a fun and exciting way.
In this activity for grades 6-8, students gain first-hand experience with the mechanical advantage of pulleys. Students are given the challenge of helping save a whale by moving it from an aquarium back to its natural habitat into the ocean. They set up different pulley systems, compare the theoretical and actual mechanical advantage of each and discuss their recommendations as a class.
This lesson plan from PBS helps students discover the basics of wind power technology in having them build and refine a wind turbine. Students examine the concept of renewable energy, identify the benefits and drawbacks of wind power, and compare its costs and impact on the environment with other energy sources.
Students grades 5-12 assume the role of civil engineers in constructing a model suspension bridge. They learn about other types of spans — including arch, girder, truss, and cantilever — and of the careful balance of compression and tension required in bridge building. 
