Students learn about traffic lights and their importance in maintaining public safety and order. Using a Parallax® Basic Stamp 2 microcontroller, students work in teams on the engineering challenge to build a traffic light with a specific behavior. In the process, they learn about light-emitting diodes (LEDs), and how their use can save energy. Students also design their own requirements based on real-world observations as they learn about traffic safety and work towards an interesting goal within the realm of what is important in practice. Knowledge gained from the activity is directly transferrable to future activities, and skills learned are scalable to more ambitious class projects.

Students learn about the fundamental strength of different shapes, illustrating why structural engineers continue to use the triangle as the structural shape of choice. Examples from everyday life are introduced to show how this shape is consistently used for structural strength. Along with its associated activity, this lesson empowers students to explore the strength of trusses made with different triangular elements to evaluate the various structural properties.

Students investigate the relationships between angles and side lengths in right triangles with the help of materials found in the classroom and a mobile device. Using all or part of a meter stick or dowel and text books or other supplies, students build right triangles and measure the angles using a clinometer application on an Android® (phone or tablet) or iOS® device (iPhone® or iPad®). Then they are challenged to create a triangle with a given side length and one angle. The electronic device is used to measure the accuracy of their constructions.

In order to show the world that the completed Brooklyn Bridge was strong enough, P.T. Barnum and his twenty-one elephants parade across to prove to everyone that the bridge is safe. The resource includes a lesson plan/book card, a design challenge, and copy of a design thinking journal that provide guidance on using the book to inspire students' curiosity for design thinking. Maker Challenge: Build a bridge between two tables or chairs that will hold one elephant per student in the class. Each student designs their own “elephant” using materials in the classroom.

A document is included in the resources folder that lists the complete standards-alignment for this book activity.

This article summarizes and links to two Science and Children articles that modify the KWL chart to include literacy skills and evidence-based claims.

This video is meant to be a fun, hands-on session that gets students to think hard about how machines work. It teaches them the connection between the geometry that they study and the kinematics that engineers use -- explaining that kinematics is simply geometry in motion. In this lesson, geometry will be used in a way that students are not used to. Materials necessary for the hands-on activities include two options: pegboard, nails/screws and a small saw; or colored construction paper, thumbtacks and scissors. Some in-class activities for the breaks between the video segments include: exploring the role of geometry in a slider-crank mechanism; determining at which point to locate a joint or bearing in a mechanism; recognizing useful mechanisms in the students' communities that employ the same guided motion they have been studying.

Students focus on the testing phase of the design process by considering how they have tested computer programs in the past and learning about a new method called JUnit to test programs in the future. JUnit is a testing method that is included with NetBeans (Java) installs or can be downloaded from the web and included in the Java build. Students design tests using JUnit and implement those tests.

Students learn how to quickly and efficiently interpret graphs, which are used for everyday purposes as well as engineering analysis. Through a practice handout completed as a class and a worksheet completed in small groups, students gain familiarity in talking about and interpreting graphs. They use common graph terminology such as independent variable, dependent variable, linear data, linear relationship and rate of change. The equation for calculating slope is explained. The focus is on students becoming able to clearly describe linear relationships by using the language of slope and the rate of change between variables. At lesson end, students discuss the relationship between variables as presented by the visual representation of a graph. Then they independently complete a homework handout.

Students study the physical properties of different fluids and investigate the relationship between the viscosities of liquid and how fast they flow through a confined area. Student groups conduct a brief experiment in which they quantify the flow rate to understand how it relates to a fluid's viscosity and ultimately chemical composition. They explore these properties in milk and cream, which are common fluids whose properties (and even taste!) differ based on fat content. They examine control samples and unknown samples, which they must identify based on how fast they flow. To identify the unknowns requires an understanding of the concept of viscosity. For example, heavy cream flows at a slower rate than skim milk. Ultimately, students gain an understanding of the concept of viscosity and its effect on flow rate.

In this activity, students take the age old concept of etch-a-sketch a step further. Using iron filings, students begin visualizing magnetic field lines. To do so, students use a compass to read the direction of the magnet's magnetic field. Then, students observe the behavior of iron filings near that magnet as they rotate the filings about the magnet. Finally, students study the behavior of iron filings suspended in mineral oil which displays the magnetic field in three dimensions.

This article describes seven strategies for assisting English Language Learners with science vocabulary development.

This is a set of three, one-page problems about calculating the volume of objects. Learners may calculate the volume of an asteroid, Vesta, or the stacking of satellites inside an atlas V rocket nose cone. Options are presented so that students may learn about the Dawn mission to asteroid Vesta through a NASA press release or about NASA's investigation of comets by viewing a NASA eClips video [5 min.]. This activity is part of the Space Math multi-media modules that integrate NASA press releases, NASA archival video, and mathematics problems targeted at specific math standards commonly encountered in middle school.

Prepared with pre-algebra or algebra 1 classes in mind, this module leads students through the process of graphing data and finding a line of best fit while exploring the characteristics of linear equations in algebraic and graphic formats. Then, these topics are connected to real-world experiences in which people use linear functions. During the module, students use these scientific concepts to solve the following hypothetical challenge: You are a new researcher in a lab, and your boss has just given you your first task to analyze a set of data. It being your first assignment, you ask an undergraduate student working in your lab to help you figure it out. She responds that you must determine what the data represents and then find an equation that models the data. You believe that you will be able to determine what the data represents on your own, but you ask for further help modeling the data. In response, she says she is not completely sure how to do it, but gives a list of equations that may fit the data. This module is built around the legacy cycle, a format that incorporates educational research feindings on how people best learn.

Focuses on the geotechnical aspects of hazardous waste management, with specific emphasis on the design of land-based waste containment structures and hazardous waste remediation. Introduction to hazardous waste; definition of hazardous waste, regulatory requirements, waste characteristics, geo-chemistry, and contaminant transport. The design and operation of waste containment structures, landfills, impoundments, and mine-waste disposal. The characterization and remediation of contaminated sites, the superfund law, preliminary site assessment, site investigation techniques, and remediation technologies. Monitoring requirements.

This article describes ways to supplement a science unit on the water cycle with the book Water Dance by Thomas Locker. Ideas for art, writing, poetry, and creative movement are included.

Students learn about the importance of dams by watching a video that presents historical and current information on dams, as well as descriptions of global water resources and the hydrologic cycle. Students also learn about different types of dams, all designed to resist the forces on dams. (If the free, 15-minute "Water and Dams in Today's World" video cannot be obtained in time, the lesson can still be taught. See the Additional Multimedia Support section for how to obtain the DVD or VHS videotape, or a PowerPoint presentation with similar content [also attached].)

Make waves with a dripping faucet, audio speaker, or laser! Add a second source or a pair of slits to create an interference pattern.

This issue of the free online magazine, Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears, explores how elementary teachers can move from a study of the weather at home to the weather of the polar regions through hands-on activity, reading, and discussion.

Students discuss several human reproductive technologies available today pregnancy ultrasound, amniocentesis, in-vitro fertilization and labor anesthetics. They learn how each technology works, and that these are ways engineers have worked to improve the health of expecting mothers and babies.

Students use modeling clay, a material that is denser than water and thus ordinarily sinks in water, to discover the principle of buoyancy. They begin by designing and building boats out of clay that will float in water, and then refine their designs so that their boats will carry as great a load (metal washers) as possible. Building a clay boat to hold as much weight as possible is an engineering design problem. Next, they compare amount of water displaced by a lump of clay that sinks to the amount of water displaced by the same lump of clay when it is shaped so as to float. Determining the masses of the displaced water allows them to arrive at Archimedes' principle, whereby the mass of the displaced water equals the mass of the floating clay boat.