This lecture/activity on force will further a students' understanding of forces on an object, as well as the difference between a balanced and unbalanced forces.

Play with objects on a teeter totter to learn about balance. Test what you've learned by trying the Balance Challenge game.

This activity is an extension of the common balloon cars, where students explore if and how different gases used as a fuel source effect the distances traveled by the cars.

This activity is a hands-on investigation that teaches students that air resitance affects how things move and that pressure from compressed air can move things.

Students follow the steps of the engineering design process as they design and construct balloons for aerial surveillance. After their first attempts to create balloons, they are given the associated Estimating Buoyancy lesson to learn about volume, buoyancy and density to help them iterate more successful balloon designs.Applying their newfound knowledge, the young engineers build and test balloons that fly carrying small flip cameras that capture aerial images of their school. Students use the aerial footage to draw maps and estimate areas.

In the open ocean around the Bahamas, pods of wild Spotted Dolphins frolic in the sunshine. Sometimes, they get bored and approach boats. In this educational video, Jonathan joins dolphin expert Wayne Scott Smith to learn how dolphins interact with each other. Jonathan learns how to play the Bandana Game, a game of -keep away- that the dolphins invented and like to play with Scott. Please see the accompanying study guide for educational objectives and discussion points.

Look inside a resistor to see how it works. Increase the battery voltage to make more electrons flow though the resistor. Increase the resistance to block the flow of electrons. Watch the current and resistor temperature change.

Becoming the Next Bill Nye is about using video production techniques to develop your ability to engagingly convey your passions for science, technology, engineering, and / or math. You’ll have the opportunity to script and on-screen host 5-minute YouTube science, technology, engineering, and / or math-related shows to inspire youth to consider a future in science.

The PhET project at the University of Colorado creates "fun, interactive, research-based simulations of physical phenomena." This particular one deals with Beer's Law. "The thicker the glass, the darker the brew, the less the light that passes through." Make colorful concentrated and dilute solutions and explore how much light they absorb and transmit using a virtual spectrophotometer! The simulation is also paired with a teachers' guide and related resources from PhET. The simulation is also available in multiple languages.

It was approximately 40,000 years ago that mankind first donned a pair of shoes. During humanity’s long history of footwear, and an equally broad array of styles, the basic fundamentals of Western shoemaking remained mostly unchanged until the mid-nineteenth century. In the 1800s, the small state of Massachusetts revolutionized the shoemaking industry, cladding the feet of consumers nationwide in unprecedented numbers. One of America’s original colonies, Massachusetts found itself at the heart of the nation’s shoemaking industry by attracting and retaining skilled shoemakers and shoe machinery engineers. Only when the technology that Massachusetts' shoemakers invented became available beyond the state did the industry’s market expand throughout the country. Even with the spread of industrialization, Massachusetts remained the largest producer of shoes in the United States through World War I, responsible for nearly forty percent of America’s shoes and home to an equal percentage of its shoemakers. This exhibition was created as part of the DPLA’s Public Library Partnerships Project by collaborators from Digital Commonwealth. Exhibition organizer: Anna Fahey-Flynn.

In this activity, a spinning bicycle wheel resists efforts to tilt it and point the axle in a new direction. Learners use the bicycle wheel like a giant gyroscope to explore angular momentum and torque. Learners can participate in the assembly of the Bicycle Wheel Gyro or use a preassembled unit to explore these concepts and go for an unexpected spin!

This course explores the physical, ecological, technological, political, economic, and cultural implications of big plans and mega-urban landscapes in a global context. It uses local and international case studies to understand the process of making major changes to urban landscape and city fabric, and to regional landscape systems. It includes lectures by leading practitioners. The assignments consider planning and design strategies across multiple scales and time frames.

Using natural sensory system concepts to develop and improve sensory systems will continue to thrive for many years to come. Technology advances rapidly (Moore’s Law) as does our understanding of biological principles and designs. These trends fuel the fertile grounds of bio-inspired sensory systems, a topic that is inherently multidisciplinary. This book will serve well as either an academic text on the subject or an introduction to the variety of proven bio-inspired designs. The focus is on sensory systems that interpret environmental stimuli. It introduces natural photo-, mechano-, and chemo-sensory systems across the animal kingdom and also summarizes various novel engineering ideas that glean ideas from these natural sensory systems.

In this video segment adapted from NOVA scienceNOW, scientists discuss their attempts to grow human body parts in a jar.

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 video provides an overview of the research of the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) on converting biomass to liquid fuels.

This detailed chemistry lesson from the U.S. Department of Energy focuses on transforming vegetable oil into biodiesel through a process of transesterification. The process described offers a good model for many chemical reaction processes that are used to produce a viable product.

In this lab activity students generate their own biomass gases by heating wood pellets or wood splints in a test tube. They collect the resulting gases and use the gas to roast a marshmallow. Students also evaluate which biomass fuel is the best by their own criteria or by examining the volume of gas produced by each type of fuel.

Health technology innovation in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), including countries in Africa, falls far short of meeting the healthcare needs of these settings. The result is a heavy reliance on products and technologies imported from industrialised countries that are often not suited to, or sustainable for, LMICs.

Appropriate healthcare products for LMICs are best developed in these countries, where local knowledge and understanding of needs, context and available resources may be incorporated into designs and implementation plans. The objectives for enabling health technology development in LMICs include: 1) expanding the base of expertise through research training programmes with a problem-solving focus; 2) stimulating new knowledge, approaches and solutions by enabling innovation; and 3) integrating research communities within and across institutions to build critical mass.

The field of biomedical engineering is central to health technology innovation. This book is a response to the need for biomedical engineering capacity in Africa. It is grounded in the African context. It serves as a resource for academics and students in biomedical engineering, for those interested in entering the field in any capacity and for practitioners at every stage of product development. University leaders intent on establishing new biomedical engineering programmes or departments, may draw on the content for guidance on structuring their offerings. The book reaches beyond Africa, as it is relevant to other LMIC settings, and provides insights to guide global health initiatives focused on technology innovation.

This ZOOM video segment shows how to create a self-contained environment and explores evaporation, condensation, and precipitation.