Demos and activities in this lesson are intended to illustrate the basic concepts of energy science -- work, force, energy, power etc. and the relationships among them. The "lecture" portion of the lesson includes many demonstrations to keep students engaged, yet has high expectations for the students to perform energy related calculations and convert units as required. A homework assignment and quiz are used to reinforce and assess these basic engineering science concepts.

Students evaluate various everyday energy conversion devices and draw block flow diagrams to show the forms and states of energy into and out of the device. They also identify the forms of energy that are useful and the desired output of the device as well as the forms that are not useful for the intended use of the item. This can be used to lead into the law of conservation of energy and efficiency. The student activity is preceded by a demonstration of a more complicated system to convert chemical energy to heat energy to mechanical energy. Drawing the block energy conversion diagram for this system models the activity that the students then do themselves for other simpler systems.

The students participate in many demonstrations during the first day of this lesson to learn basic concepts related to the forms and states of energy. This knowledge is then applied the second day as they assess various everyday objects to determine what forms of energy are transformed to accomplish the object's intended task. The students use block diagrams to illustrate the form and state of energy flowing into and out of the process.

This six-day lesson provides students with an introduction to the importance of energy in their lives and the need to consider how and why we consume the energy we do. The lesson includes activities to engage students in general energy issues, including playing an award-winning Energy Choices board game, and an optional graphing activity that provides experience with MS Excel graphing and perspectives on how we use energy and how much energy we use.

This lesson covers concepts of energy and energy transfer utilizing energy transfer in musical instruments as an example. More specifically, the lesson explains the two different ways in which energy can be transferred between a system and its environment. The law of conservation of energy will also be taught. Example systems will be presented to students (two cars on a track and a tennis ball falling to the ground) and students will be asked to make predictions and explain the energy transfer mechanisms. The engineering focus comes in clearly in the associated activity when students are asked to apply the fundamental concepts of the lesson to design a musical instrument. The systems analyzed in the lesson should help a great deal in terms of discussing how to apply conservation of energy and energy transfer to make things.

Students are introduced to sound energy concepts and how engineers use sound energy. Through hands-on activities and demonstrations, students examine how we know sound exists by listening to and seeing sound waves. They learn to describe sound in terms of its pitch, volume and frequency. They explore how sound waves move through liquids, solids and gases. They also identify the different pitches and frequencies, and create high- and low-pitch sound waves.

Students are introduced to genetic techniques such as DNA electrophoresis and imaging technologies used for molecular and DNA structure visualization. In the field of molecular biology and genetics, biomedical engineering plays an increasing role in the development of new medical treatments and discoveries. Engineering applications of nanotechnology such as lab-on-a-chip and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) microarrays are used to study the human genome and decode the complex interactions involved in genetic processes.

This course is intended to understand the engineering design of nuclear power plants using the basic principles of reactor physics, thermodynamics, fluid flow and heat transfer. This course includes the following: Reactor designs, Thermal analysis of nuclear fuel, Reactor coolant flow and heat transfer, Power conversion cycles, Nuclear safety and Reactor dynamic behavior.

This course is designed to be a survey of the various subdisciplines of geophysics (geodesy, gravity, geomagnetism, seismology, and geodynamics) and how they might relate to or be relevant for other planets. No prior background in Earth sciences is assumed, but students should be comfortable with vector calculus, classical mechanics, and potential field theory.

Students learn that buoyancy is responsible for making boats, hot air balloons and weather balloons float. They calculate whether or not a boat or balloon will float, and calculate the volume needed to make a balloon or boat of a certain mass float. Conduct the first day of the associated activity before conducting this lesson.

Harry estimates how long it will take him to get to the front of a long ticket line in this Cyberchase video segment.

Students explore material properties in hands-on and visually evident ways via the Archimedes' principle. First, they design and conduct an experiment to calculate densities of various materials and present their findings to the class. Using this information, they identify an unknown material based on its density. Then, groups explore buoyant forces. They measure displacement needed for various materials to float on water and construct the equation for buoyancy. Using this equation, they calculate the numerical solution for a boat hull using given design parameters.

In this fun optics activity, learners explore principles of light, reflection (mirrors), and perception. Learners work in pairs and sit on opposite sides of a "two-way" mirror. Both partners vary the amount light illuminating their faces. As they adjust the light, they begin to see themselves gradually assuming aspects of their partner's features, so that their image becomes a "composite" person. This activate guide includes instructions on how to build a two-way mirror.

Evolution of Physical Oceanography was created to mark the career of Henry M. Stommel, the leading physical oceanographer of the 20th Century and a longtime MIT faculty member. The authors of the different chapters were asked to describe the evolution of their subject over the history of physical oceanography, and to provide a survey of the state-of-the-art of their subject as of 1980. Many of the chapters in this textbook are still up-to-date descriptions of active scientific fields, and all of them are important historical records. This textbook is made available courtesy of The MIT Press.

Junior Lab consists of two undergraduate courses in experimental physics. The courses are offered by the MIT Physics Department, and are usually taken by Juniors (hence the name). Officially, the courses are called Experimental Physics I and II and are numbered 8.13 for the first half, given in the fall semester, and 8.14 for the second half, given in the spring.The purposes of Junior Lab are to give students hands-on experience with some of the experimental basis of modern physics and, in the process, to deepen their understanding of the relations between experiment and theory, mostly in atomic and nuclear physics. Each term, students choose 5 different experiments from a list of 21 total labs.

Study of physical effects in the vicinity of a black hole as the basis for understanding general relativity, astrophysics, and elements of cosmology. Extension to current developments in theory and observation. Energy and momentum in flat spacetime; the metric; curvature or spacetime near rotating and nonrotating centers of attraction; the Global Positioning System and its dependence on general relativity; trajectories and orbits of particles. Subject has online component and classroom lectures are replaced with online interactions: manipulation of visualization software, access to websites describing current research, electronic submission of homework, and structured online discussions between undergraduates and alumni and with instructors and graduate specialists in the topics covered.

In this activity, students will explore two given websites to gather information on Bone Mineral Density and how it is measured. They will also learn about X-rays in general, how they work and their different uses, along with other imaging modalities. They will answer guiding questions as they explore the websites and take a short quiz after to test the knowledge they gained while reading the articles.

Students will review their knowledge of tension and focus on tensile loads and failure caused by them.

Basic principles of planet atmospheres and interiors applied to the study of extrasolar planets (exoplanets). Focus on fundamental physical processes related to observable exoplanet properties. Quantitative overview of detection techniques. Introduction to the feasibility of the search for Earth-like planets, biosignatures and habitable conditions on exoplanets.

Based on what they have already learned about friction, students formulate hypotheses concerning the effects of weight and contact area on the amount of friction between two surfaces. In the Associated Activities (Does Weight Matter? and Does Area Matter?), students design and conduct simple experiments to test their hypotheses, using procedures similar to those used in the previous lesson (Discovering Friction). An analysis of their data will reveal the importance of weight to normal friction (the friction that occurs as a result of surface roughness) and the importance of surface area to the friction that occurs between smooth surfaces due to molecular attraction. Based on their data, students will also be able to calculate coefficients of friction for the materials tested, and compare these to published values for various materials.