Posted on December 17th, 2019 by Mary Lord
High school students practice human-centered design by imagining, designing, and prototyping a product to improve classroom accessibility for the visually impaired. The begin by wearing low-vision simulation goggles (or blindfolds) and walking with canes to navigate through a classroom in order to experience what it feels like to be visually impaired.
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Filed under: Class Activities, Grades 9-12, Grades 9-12, Lesson Plans | Comments Off on Redesigning a Classroom for the Visually Impaired
Tags: accessibility, Class Activities, Engineering Design Process, Grades 9-12, Human-centered design, sight-impaired
Posted on September 4th, 2019 by Mary Lord
Elementary students learn about wind and kinetic and renewable energy while following the steps of the engineering design process to imagine, create, test, evaluate, and refine small, wind-powered sail cars built from limited quantities of drinking straws, masking tape, paper, and beads. Teams of two then compete to see which sail-car travels the farthest when pushed by the wind (simulated by the use of an electric fan).
Note: This NGSS-aligned activity is part of a unit in which multiple activities are brought together for an all-day school/multi-school concluding “engineering field day” competition.
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Filed under: Class Activities, Grades K-5, Lesson Plans | Comments Off on Wind-Powered Sail Cars
Tags: Class Activities, Competitions for Students, Engineering Design Process, Grades K-5, Lesson Plan, sail cars, teachengineering, wind power
Posted on February 8th, 2019 by Mary Lord
In this activity, teams of students in grades 6 to 8 will learn about the engineering design process and how a one-way valve works by creating heart valves from tape, plastic tubing, and other materials.
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Filed under: Class Activities, Grades 6-8, Grades 6-8, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Lesson Plans | 1 Comment »
Tags: biomdedical engineering, Class Activities, device, Engineering Design Process, Grades 6-8, heart, Lesson Plan, Mechanical engineering, valve
Posted on July 26th, 2018 by Mary Lord
High school students design a permanent guest village within the Saguaro National Park in Arizona after studying the desert ecology. Their designs must provide a true desert experience for visitors while emphasizing sustainable design, protecting the natural environment, and conserving energy and resources.
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Filed under: Class Activities, Grades 9-12, Lesson Plans | Comments Off on Designing Desert Digs
Tags: bio-inspired design, Biomimicry, Class Activities, cooling, desert, eco-village, ecology, Energy, Engineering Design Process, environment, Environmental Engineering, Grades 9-12, habitat, heat, Lesson Plan, Saguaro National Park, shelter, solar power, Sustainability, tourist village
Posted on April 30th, 2018 by Mary Lord
Students in grades 9 and 10 are introduced to the biomechanical characteristics of helmets and challenged to incorporate them into helmet designs. They come to understand the role of engineering associated with safety products – in this case protecting the brain and neck of a bicyclist in the event of a crash, with the design dependent on the user’s needs and specifications.
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Filed under: Class Activities, Grades 9-12, Lesson Plans | Comments Off on Build a Bike Helmet
Tags: bicycle, bicycle helmet, Class Activities, EcoHelmet, Engineering Design Process, force and motion, Grades 9-12, Lesson Plan, Materials Engineering, NHTSA, Physics, Safety engineering, Sports, video
Posted on April 18th, 2018 by Mary Lord
Students in grades 6 to 8 explore food production problems related to population growth and then engineer a model vertical farm as a potential solution in a fictional community, Greentown, culminating with a presentation to the imaginary city’s “legislators.”
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Filed under: Class Activities, Grades 6-8, K-12 Outreach Programs, Lesson Plans, Web Resources | Comments Off on Engineer a Vertical Farm
Tags: agriculture, Class Activities, crops, EiE, Engineering Design Process, engineering grand challenges, Engineering is Elementary, Engineering is Everywhere, Environmental Engineering, Environmental science, food supply, Grades 6-8, greenhouse, plant science, school gardens, STEM education, vertical farming, Web Resources
Posted on March 12th, 2018 by Mary Lord
Working in pairs, students in grades 6 to 8 follow the engineering design process to create the strongest truss bridge using a fixed amount of plastic drinking straws and tape. Let the competition begin!
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Filed under: Class Activities, Grades 6-8, Lesson Plans | Comments Off on Straw Bridges
Tags: bridge, Bridge Design, Class Activities, Engineering Design Process, forces, Grades 6-8, Lesson Plan, truss
Posted on February 8th, 2018 by Mary Lord
Students in grades 3 to 12 explore the effects of gravity, friction, and air resistance upon acceleration by using the engineering design process to design, build, and test their own bobsleds with the aim of reducing run times with each attempt.
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Filed under: Class Activities, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Grades K-5 | Comments Off on Bobsled Blitz
Tags: 2018 winter Olympics, Aerodynamics, Bobsled, Class Activities, Engineering Design Process, forces and motion, friction, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Grades K-5
Posted on January 5th, 2018 by Mary Lord
High school students design and build wind chimes using their knowledge of physics and sound waves, and under such constraints as weight, cost, and the number of musical notes their chimes must generate. They make mathematical computations to determine the pipe lengths. Links to similar activities for younger students included in activity scaling section.
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Filed under: Class Activities, Grades 9-12, Lesson Plans | Comments Off on Wind Chimes
Tags: career technical education, chimes, Class Activities, Engineering Design Process, frequency, Grades 9-12, Lesson Plan, Mathematics, Physics, sound, STEAM, wave length, wind chimes