This investigation will have students testing how heating and cooling can change the state of matter. They will test a variety of materials determine whether a change takes place through heating/cooling.

This is a guided inquiry investigation for students to determine the state of matter of a mystery material and to make potential real world applications/products for the mystery material.

Students have a discussion on the different levels of security they would like for personal data. Once the class has developed an understanding of the importance of privacy, they learn about the process of encrypting information by enciphering a note for a partner and deciphering the partner's note. The class concludes with a discussion about the importance of both physical and digital security.

Geographic information systems (GIS), once used predominantly by experts in cartography and computer programming, have become pervasive in everyday business and consumer use. This unit explores GIS in general as a technology about which much more can be learned, and it also explores applications of that technology. Students experience GIS technology through the use of Google Earth on the environmental topic of plastics in the ocean in an area known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The use of this topic in GIS makes the unit multidisciplinary, incorporating the physics of ocean currents, the chemistry associated with pollutant degradation and chemical sorption to organic-rich plastics, and ecological impact to aquatic biota.

This online calculator converts from one energy unit to another - from gallons to British thermal units (Btu), kilowatt/hours to megajoules, short tons to metric tons.

This activity allows students to demonstrate their understanding of the Law of Conservation of Energy in the framework of student-designed investigations.

Learn how friction causes a material to heat up and melt. Rub two objects together and they heat up. When one reaches the melting temperature, particles break free as the material melts away.

6.977 focuses on the physics of the interaction of photons with semiconductor materials. The band theory of solids is used to calculate the absorption and gain of semiconductor media. The rate equation formalism is used to develop the concepts of laser threshold, population inversion and modulation response. Matrix methods and coupled mode theory are applied to resonator structures such as distributed feedback lasers, tunable lasers and microring devices. The course is also intended to introduce students to noise models for semiconductor devices and to applications of optoelectronic devices to fiber optic communications. This course is worth 12 Engineering Design points.

This suite of short video clips is part of a series produced by the Switch Energy project. There are several video segments that discuss different perspectives of biofuels as a renewable source of energy.

This fuel cell animation demonstrates how a fuel cell uses hydrogen to produce electricity, with only water and heat as byproducts. The animation consists of four parts - an introduction, fuel cell components, chemical process, and fuel cell stack.

This map shows how much electrical power is produced from wind in each state from 1999 through 2010. The animation shows a general increase in the amount of wind power produced per state and the number of states producing it.

STUDENT ACTIVITY -- 5th -- NCThis is a distance-learning lesson students can complete at home.Students will explore the outdoors for natural examples of heat transfer through conduction, convection, and radiation.This activity was created by Out Teach (out-teach.org), a nonprofit providing outdoor experiential learning to transform Science education for students in under-served communities.

This lesson discusses the interior structure of the earth as defined by research on the behavior of seismic waves as they move through the layers inside of the planet. The lesson details both compositional layers as well as mechanical layers.

This is a lesson about using light to identify the composition of an object. Learners will use a spectrograph to gather data about light sources. Using the data they’ve collected, students are able to make comparisons between different light sources and make conjectures about the composition of a mystery light source. The activity is part of Project Spectra, a science and engineering program for middle-high school students, focusing on how light is used to explore the Solar System.

Growth and development through the lifespan including physical, social, cognitive and neurological development. This course covers topics in each of these areas and provides an overview on subjects such as day care, education, disabilities, parenting, types of families, gender identity and roles, career decisions, illnesses and treatments, aging, retirement, generativity, and dying.

Research physical scientist, Dr. Dalia Kirschbaum, is featured in this short (~3 min.) video. Dr. Kirschbaum explains how the integration of her initial interest in math and her subsequent interest in the science of natural disasters lead to her career focus of landslide modeling. Now part of the NASA Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) team, she communicates about the GPM mission and data to the public and to others who use it in their work and/or research.

Students are tasked with designing a special type of hockey stick for a sled hockey team—a sport designed for individuals with physical disabilities to play ice hockey. Using the engineering design process, students act as material engineers to create durable hockey sticks using a variety of materials. The stick designs will contain different interior structures that can hold up during flexure (or bending) tests. Following flexure testing, the students can use their results to iterate upon their design and create a second stick.

This activity needs large linoleum, carpet and tar or asphalt space to race student constructed balloon powered cars. Students will learn that speed, velocity, and changes in velocity are the result of the action of forces on objects

Students analyze the physical characteristics of sand to determine if it is suitable for use in hydraulic fracturing.

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