A Boost for Vocational Education
Posted on October 11th, 2010 by Jaimie Schock
Lincoln Unified school district in Stockton, California, is betting that the newly-opened Jeff Wright Engineering and Construction Academy will be well worth its $8.5 million investment. Some 500 students will study topics ranging from carpentry to computerized drafting to mechanical engineering.
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Tags: Education Policy, Mechanical engineering, Public Policy, Technology Education, Vocational Education
An engineer-turned-teacher, Christopher Tolbert inspires both at-risk and advanced students with challenges that convert gasoline-powered cars to run on electricity. In Tolbert’s high-octane classroom, “every student is held accountable.”
This vintage engineering tutorial, made by General Motors, clearly and engagingly explains how differential gears work. Posted on YouTube last year, it has now received close to a million views — not bad for something made in 1937. Ever wonder how cars can make turns without skidding? Engineers came up with the solution.
In this Techbridge lesson, students in grades 5-12 collaborate to solve a fun engineering challenge: to create a device capable of transferring a set of “radioactive” golf balls from one bag to another – with no human contact. Which team can complete the task in the shortest amount of time possible?
Students in grades 6-12 disassemble one of two different single-use cameras and create a systems diagram and precise reassembly instructions for the device. They then attempt to rebuild the other camera using instructions developed by their peers. Through this reverse engineering activity, students learn about the work of systems engineers.
Rube Goldberg was an engineer-turned-Pulitzer-Prize-winning cartoonist who specialized in whimsical drawings of complicated machines designed to perform the simplest of tasks. For 23 years, the Rube Goldberg Machine contest at Purdue University has inspired high school and college teams to construct working models of the wacky machines. This year’s winner? Thorp High School in Wisconsin.
In this activity for grades 6-8, students gain first-hand experience with the mechanical advantage of pulleys. Students are given the challenge of helping save a whale by moving it from an aquarium back to its natural habitat into the ocean. They set up different pulley systems, compare the theoretical and actual mechanical advantage of each and discuss their recommendations as a class.
This lesson plan from PBS helps students discover the basics of wind power technology in having them build and refine a wind turbine. Students examine the concept of renewable energy, identify the benefits and drawbacks of wind power, and compare its costs and impact on the environment with other energy sources.
