Go! Transportation eZine for Teens
Posted on August 20th, 2018 by Mary Lord
Crazy about cars – or driven mad by traffic? Iowa State University’s Institute for Transportation offers an engaging set of resources, including Go! Magazine, a free e-zine in English and Spanish, for students and teachers to learn about transportation research and careers.
Filed under: K-12 Outreach Programs, Special Features, Web Resources | Comments Off on Go! Transportation eZine for Teens
Tags: autonomous vehicles, Civil Engineering, Engineering, Go! Magazine, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, highway, Iowa State University Institute for Transportation, Resources for Teachers, roads, shipping, traffic engineering, Transportation, Web Resources
eCYBERMISSION, a free, web-based STEM fair sponsored for students in grades 6 to 9, offers real-world opportunities to apply classroom learning and solve community problems, with winners receiving up to $9,000 in U.S. Savings Bonds. Teams must register by December 19, 2018 and submit projects by February 27, 2019. Register by November 21 to receive a free STEM kit.
Students in grades 9 to 12 analyze real-world traffic data to evaluate the efficiency of a section of a public transit system and suggest design improvements. They then evaluate whether the changes make positive impacts on the system’s performance. Includes link to a California Academy of Sciences challenge on designing more energy-efficient, greener buses.
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.
Teams of high school students learn about energy and energy transformation, then use their knowledge to design and build a paper model of the most fun and exciting roller coaster they can imagine.
Students in grades 7 to 9 build model roller coasters using pipe insulation and marbles, then analyze them using physics principles, including conversions between kinetic and potential energy and frictional effects. A class competition using various marbles to represent different passenger loads determines the most innovative and successful designs.
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.
Sensors are in everything from smart phones to corn fields. They also can be a powerful and engaging tool to teach STEM. SENSE IT, a free, research-based curriculum, involves students in hands-on learning about their local environment by constructing, deploying, and interpreting data from a network of water-quality sensors. 
One developed a mathematical model that predicts the spread of potato blight. Another examined the response of lung cells to electronic cigarettes. The teens who topped this year’s Regeneron Science Talent Search come from 31 schools in 15 states. But all underscore the importance of elementary science instruction – an advantage few U.S. students currently enjoy, a new report notes. 
