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Lend A Hand: Teaching Forces

3D printed prosthetic handWorking in groups of three, middle school students learn about types of forces, the relationship between form and function, and the structure of the hand by working as biomedical engineers to design, build, and test their own hand “gripper” prototypes that can grasp and lift a 200 ml cup of sand.

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Naked Egg Drop

egg yolk droppingParis of students in grades 3 to 6 experience the engineering design process by building and modifying devices to catch and protect a “naked” egg as it is dropped from increasing heights. The activity scales up to district or regional egg drop competitions.

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Build a Pop-Up Card or Book

pop-up book of snowmenIn this activity, students in grades 2 to 8 learn about applied forces and elements of the engineering design process by creating a pop-up card or book.

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Get Me Off This Planet!

spaceship illustration on marsIn this lesson to teach middle school students how a spacecraft gets from the surface of the Earth to Mars, students first investigate rockets and how they are able to get us into space, then discuss the nature of an orbit as well as how orbits enable us to get from planet to planet.

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Paper Penny Bridge

stacks of penniesIn this activity, student teams in grades 8 and up learn about the engineering design process and physical forces by building a bridge from a single sheet of paper and up to five paper clips that will span 20 cm and support the weight of 100 pennies. Like real engineers, teams also have limited budgets and must make trade-offs in materials.

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Watercraft

raft bugIn this activity, students in grades 6 to 8 learn about the engineering design process and the physical principles of buoyancy by working together to build a boat out of straws and plastic wrap that can hold 25 pennies for at least 10 seconds before sinking.

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Lesson: Balloon Aeronautics

balloon1In this lesson, teams of students in grades 4 – 8 learn about basic aerodynamics by constructing a rocket from a balloon propelled along a guide-string. They use this model to learn about Newton’s three laws of motion, examining the effect of different forces on the motion of the rocket.

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