Through a series of picture book read-alouds, students engage in critical discussion of complex issues of race, class, and gender.

This is a brief lesson designed to introduce students to the lives and contributions of Sarah and Angelina Grimke, two remarkable sisters, who played a pivotal role in the Abolitionist and  Suffrage Movements in South Carolina and the United States. 

Students learn about stress and strain by designing and building beams using polymer clay. They compete to find the best beam strength to beam weight ratio, and learn about the trade-offs engineers make when designing a structure.

Students will learn about ancient styles of Roman portraiture and their influence on western European art, research and write a paper that compares Roman and American slavery, and produce an original sketch of a grave relief for a freed slave.

In this math activity, students conduct a strength test using modeling clay, creating their own stress vs. strain graphs, which they compare to typical steel and concrete graphs. They learn the difference between brittle and ductile materials and how understanding the strength of materials, especially steel and concrete, is important for engineers who design bridges and structures.

This unit will focus on the transgressive behavior of characters from some of Shakespeare’s most famous plays and how we can identify with those actions. This unit is designed to help students bridge the gap between Shakespearean literature and modern life. Many times we find ourselves saying the wrong thing to someone, something that might sound offensive; and even if we didn’t mean it, the next necessary step is to consider how we get out of that situation. In modern life, we create transgressive behavior just as did Shakespeare’s characters. The plays we will focus on in this unit are Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing, and Henry IV part 1. Students will be asked to identify the transgressive behavior, to discuss the significance of who owns it, how he or she got into the situation, and how the scene might alternatively play out. Students will be asked to create parallel moments in contemporary contexts and to incorporate the Shakespeare line in their alternative contexts. This unit will suggest the use of vocabulary lists per each play, summaries of each story, character maps, as well as background information on the writer himself.

Students are introduced to the respiratory system, the lungs and air. They learn about how the lungs and diaphragm work, how air pollution affects lungs and respiratory functions, some widespread respiratory problems, and how engineers help us stay healthy by designing machines and medicines that support respiratory health and function.

In this demonstration of chemical change, the presenter blows breath into a methylene blue solution releasing carbon dioxide which acidifies the water and changes it from a bright blue color to green.

Students use a simple pH indicator to measure how much CO2 is produced during respiration, at rest and after exercising. They begin by comparing some common household solutions in order to determine the color change of the indicator. They review the concepts of pH and respiration and extend their knowledge to measuring the effectiveness of bioremediation in the environment.

In this activity, learners work in teams to construct human lung models from small plastic beverage bottles and balloons. Learners use the models to investigate how movements of the diaphragm cause lungs to inflate. This activity can be enhanced by sharing the "Health Hazards of Lunar Dust" Podcast with learners (see related resource link). This resource includes background information and variation ideas.

In this interactive activity from the Building Big Web site, use your knowledge of bridge design to match the right bridge to the right location in a fictitious city.

Nurse Aiko Hamaguchi and friends seated around a table playing bridge. Title transcribed from Ansel Adams' caption on negative sleeve. Gift; Ansel Adams; 1965-1968. Forms part of: Manzanar War Relocation Center photographs.

Nurse Aiko Hamaguchi and friends seated around a table playing bridge. Title transcribed from Ansel Adams' caption on negative sleeve. Gift; Ansel Adams; 1965-1968. Forms part of: Manzanar War Relocation Center photographs.

Nurse Aiko Hamaguchi and friends seated around a table playing bridge. Title transcribed from Ansel Adams' caption on negative sleeve. Gift; Ansel Adams; 1965-1968. Forms part of: Manzanar War Relocation Center photographs.

Nurse Aiko Hamaguchi, Nurse Chiye Yamanaki, Miss Catherine Yamaguchi, and Miss Kazoko Nagahama seated around a table each holding a hand of playing cards. Title transcribed from Ansel Adams' caption on verso of print. Original neg. no.: LC-A35-5-M-5-Ax. Gift; Ansel Adams; 1965-1968. Forms part of: Manzanar War Relocation Center photographs.

Students explore how tension and compression forces act on three different bridge types. Using sponges, cardboard and string, they create models of beam, arch and suspension bridges and apply forces to understand how they disperse or transfer these loads.

Bridges come in a wide variety of sizes, shapes, and lengths and are found all over the world. It is important that bridges are strong so they are safe to cross. Design and build a your own model bridge. Test your bridge for strength using a force sensor that measures how hard you pull on your bridge. By observing a graph of the force, determine the amount of force needed to make your bridge collapse.

Through a five-lesson series that includes numerous hands-on activities, students are introduced to the importance and pervasiveness of bridges for connecting people to resources, places and other people, with references to many historical and current-day examples. In learning about bridge types arch, beam, truss and suspension students explore the effect of tensile and compressive forces. Students investigate the calculations that go into designing bridges; they learn about loads and cross-sectional areas by designing and testing the strength of model piers. Geology and soils are explored as they discover the importance of foundations, bearing pressure and settlement considerations in the creation of dependable bridges and structures. Students learn about brittle and ductile material properties. Students also learn about the many cost factors that comprise the economic considerations of bridge building. Bridges are unique challenges that take advantage of the creative nature of engineering.

This activity s a student project to construct and test the load bearing capacity of a scale model bridge from toothpicks.