This video adapted from the Valdez Museum & Historical Archive, explores what happened during the Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964 through original footage, first-person accounts, and animations illustrating plate tectonics.

This activity is a brief introduction to adaptations as the group observes a live organism together. Adaptations are inheritable structures and behaviors that help a group of organisms survive in their habitat. Students start out observing an organisms’ structures, trying to figure which might help it survive in its habitat and which are inheritable. Then, they do the same with behaviors: attempting to figure out which ones are behavioral adaptations. To build understanding of a complex concept like adaptations, students need multiple exposures to it, which is why this activity should be followed by other adaptations-focused activities.

In this video from Nature, geological detectives use ancient diamonds to learn more about Earth's inner layers.

This video from First Alaskans Institute spotlights the Alaska Native community of St. Paul and its hands-on commitment to care for the land and animals on which it depends.

In this video adapted from Alaska Sea Grant, discover why multiple tsunamis resulted from the Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964.

This site teaches Structure in Algebraic Expressions to High Schoolers through a series of 3482 questions and interactive activities aligned to 26 Common Core mathematics skills.

Students define and classify alloys as mixtures, while comparing and contrasting the properties of alloys to those of pure substances. Students learn that engineers investigate the structures and properties of alloys for biomedical and transportation applications. Pre- and post-assessment handouts are provided.

This video segment adapted from NOVA explains why ice sheets move. To find out how fast they move, scientists carve a tunnel through a glacier.

What happens when the ground under your feet is ice and it's moving? This video segment adapted from NOVA features some of the dangers faced by scientists conducting research in Antarctica.

Students explore the interface between architecture and engineering. In the associated hands-on activity, students act as both architects and engineers by designing and building a small parking garage.

The impact of natural disasters is made vivid in this video segment adapted from NOVA. A small town in Iceland, prepared for recurrent avalanches, is devastated when one takes a new and damaging path.

Students groups use balsa wood and glue to build their own towers using some of the techniques they learned from the associated lesson. While general guidelines are provided, give students freedom with their designs and encourage them to implement what they have learned about structural engineering. The winning team design is the tower with the highest strength-to-weight ratio.

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

Student teams design their own booms (bridges) and engage in a friendly competition with other teams to test their designs. Each team strives to design a boom that is light, can hold a certain amount of weight, and is affordable to build. Teams are also assessed on how close their design estimations are to the final weight and cost of their boom "construction." This activity teaches students how to simplify the math behind the risk and estimation process that takes place at every engineering firm prior to the bidding phase when an engineering firm calculates how much money it will take to build the project and then "bids" against other competitors.

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.

Create giant bubbles! Bubbles are fascinating. What gives them their shape? What makes them break or last? What causes the colors and patterns in the soap film, and why do they change?

In this video segment from PEEP and the Big Wide World, children make a dam with dirt, sticks, and stones to try to stop the flow of water.

Students create and analyze composite materials with the intent of using the materials to construct a structure with optimal strength and minimal density. The composite materials are made of puffed rice cereal, marshmallows and chocolate chips. Student teams vary the concentrations of the three components to create their composite materials. They determine the material density and test its compressive strength by placing weights on it and measuring how much the material compresses. Students graph stress vs. strain and determine Young's modulus to analyze the strength of their materials.

What does the brain look like? As engineers, how can we look at neural networks without invasive surgery? In this activity, students design and build neuron models based on observations made while viewing neurons through a microscope. The models are used to explain how each structure of the neuron contributes to the overall function. Students share their models with younger students and explain what a neuron is, its function, and how engineers use their understanding of the neuron to make devices to activate neurons.

Students are introduced to some basic civil engineering concepts in an exciting and interactive manner. Bridges and skyscrapers, the two most visible structures designed by civil engineers, are discussed in depth, including the design principles behind them. To help students visualize in three dimensions, one hands-on activity presents three-dimensional coordinate systems and gives students practice finding and describing points in space. After learning about skyscrapers, tower design principles and how materials absorb different types of forces, students compete to build their own newspaper towers to meet specific design criteria.The unit concludes with student groups using balsa wood and glue to design and build tower structures to withstand vertical and lateral forces.