Solar Sails: The Future of Space Travel
Teams of students in grades 7 to 9 follow the engineering design process to create, construct, test, and improve model solar sails made of aluminum foil to move cardboard tube satellites through “space” on a string. During the process, they learn about Newton’s laws of motion and the transfer of energy from wave energy to mechanical energy.
Filed under: Class Activities, Grades 6-8, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Grades 9-12, Lesson Plans | Comments Off on Solar Sails: The Future of Space Travel
Tags: Aerospace, Class Activities, Design, energy transfer, Engineering Design Process, forces and motion, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Lesson Plan, Newton, Newton's Laws, NGSS aligned activity, solar sails, space exploration, spacecraft, teachengineering
On April 3, U.S. health officials recommended an arts-and-crafts project to thwart the spread of coronavirus: Make a cloth face mask and wear it when you go out in public. Here are some tips and templates for turning T-shirts and other materials into DIY personal protective gear.
A classic engineering challenge involves designing and building devices that can deliver necessary goods to “Toxic Island,” an island that has been quarantined by the World Health Organization due to a nasty outbreak of disease. Working within specific constraints, including limited materials, middle school students follow the engineering design process to design, test, and improve a device that can deliver “medicine” and other vital supplies accurately and quickly without touching either the water or island.
Spatial visualization – the ability to imagine objects from different angles – is a key STEM problem-solving skill that varies widely by gender, race, and cultural background. Yet it’s rarely taught. The University of Colorado-Boulder’s College of Engineering developed an inexpensive training program that closed STEM performance gaps so well it’s required of all incoming engineering students. The curriculum is now available for free online so any school can advance STEM equity. 
Every day, Americans waste enough food to fill a football stadium. To mark National STEM/STEAM Day on November 8, the STEMconnector’s National Day of Design contest is challenging students of all grade levels to design solutions for eliminating food waste in their school’s cafeteria. Meanwhile the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Environmental Protection Agency are hosting food waste and recovery challenges.
Students in grades 3 to 5 work in groups to design a structure that will withstand and protect people from tornadoes. Each group then creates a poster with the name of their engineering firm and a picture of their structure. Finally, each group presents their posters to the class.
A farm, community art show, dinner party, or classroom? The possibilities are endless when transforming a parking space into a roadside showcase for the design side of STEM this PARK(ing) Day, Friday, September 21. 
A lot of engineering goes into making today’s gravity-defying rides both exciting and safe. Read about some roller coaster designers and the skills they bring to creating the world’s most thrilling wooden, steel, and virtual-reality experiences.
From dockless bike sharing and airless tires to Eta, the world’s fastest pedal bike (photo), bicycle technology has come a long way since the 1858 velocipede Boneshaker debuted. And engineering students and researchers have powered many of the innovations. 
