Earth Day 2011
Posted on April 10th, 2011 by Mary Lord
For more than 40 years, Earth Day — April 22 — has been inspiring individuals and communities to protect the planet. For 2011, Earth Day Network, the world’s largest environmental advocacy group, hopes to mobilize 1 billion “Acts of Green.”
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Tags: Class Activities, Education Policy, Environmental Engineering, Environmental science, Events, Internet Resources, Research, Resources for Teachers, Teacher Resources, Web Resources
In this activity, students will explore how sensing is part of robotics by tying their shoes with different constraints. After lacing their shoes normally, try it wearing thick gloves or with popsicle sticks taped to fingers so they can’t bend. Can students tie their shoes now? A connection is made to the limitations of the motion of robots, and to the role of design in allowing robots to perform different functions.
In this activity, students will learn the challenges of operating a robotic rover on the distant Red Planet and solve problems through a hands-on simulation. After trying to navigate an obstacle course blindfolded and guided only by verbal commands, students will discover that tooling around Mars is no simple joy-stick ride. 
In this lesson, you’ll introduce your students to the four forces of flight–drag, lift, thrust, and weight–through a variety of fun-filled flight experiments. Students will “fly” for short periods and then evaluate factors that might either increase or decrease their “flight” duration.
It’s easy to find your way to school. Now imagine trying to navigate the skies, with no signs to point you in the right direction. How do pilots find their way? These “pilot training lessons” developed by the Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education at the Stevens Institute of Technology will teach your young aviators the principles of navigation in a fun series of real-time activities.
Basketball not only is fun to play or watch–it packs a lot of math and science in each move. In this lesson, developed by NPR’s Talking Science with John Fontanella, a physicist at the U.S. Naval Academy and author of The Physics of Basketball, students will learn how physics affects the game. What forces are acting on the ball? What must players do to offset these forces? 
From the “miracle fiber” Kevlar invented by Dupont chemist Stephanie Kwolek to Silly Putty, our world abounds with materials discovered by accident. In this activity from the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), students will learn some serious materials science–and hit several national science and tehcnology standards–by using everyday items to create and investigate the properties of Funny Putty.
In this lesson, students in grades 3 through 8 assume the role of building engineers, testing several materials to determine which would provide the best house insulation. They learn about the role of insulation in preventing heat transfer and discuss the importance of energy conservation in buildings.
Students in grades K-5 observe how various roof shapes perform under the challenge of a flour “snow storm.” Students learn how engineers must accommodate climate and the environment when designing a housing structure.
