Students will examine ways declining bee population can impact day to day life, by considering how the cost of honey and pollination has been affected society Students will create real-world problems that relate to statistics on the declining bee population.
Material Type: Unit of Study
Science Career Exploration
Material Type: Lesson, Lesson Plan
Students will calculate the glide slope ratio and angle of paper airplanes they have created. They will make claims about the type of airplane and support claims with evidence and reasoning from their class data.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
The Challenge: The challenge is to design and build a water filtration device using commonly available materials. To meet this challenge, students use an iterative repeating process as they build, test, and measure the performance of the filtration device, analyze the data collected, and use this information to work towards an improved filtration design. It is the same design process used by engineers and scientists working on ECLSS for NASA. Although students will work in teams of two–three, they are encouraged to think of their entire class as a single design team working cooperatively and learning from the efforts of all members in order to produce the best water filtration device. Students measure the effectiveness of their filtration device using pH test strips. Detailed plans and a complete materials list are provided.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
In this activity, students will learn about and apply the Engineering Design Process to solve a problem. While working through the steps of the Engineering Design process they will focus on defining the criteria and constraints of a design problem, learn about scientific principles of simple machines, understand tool and machine safety, and create a prototype solution to the problem. The activity frames the problem around researching, designing, building and testing a prototype that is built with at least one simple machine that will launch a ball into a target. At end of unit students test their prototypes and present their findings of working through the process. ● Project Rubric
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Assessment, Diagram/Illustration, Lecture Notes, Unit of Study
Students will learn about the water cycle, watersheds, and point and non-point source pollution. Students will then apply this knowledge to take a position in the debate about the proposed development at Hawn's Bridge Peninsula at Raystown Lake and write a letter to the editor expressing their opinion. Pairs well with an Engineering Design Challenge or a Meaningful Watershed Educational Experience (MWEE).
Material Type: Lesson Plan, Module
In the Body System Amusement Parks project, students team up to create amusement parks based on the various systems and organs within the human body. With the power of abstraction, each attraction represents the cardiovascular system, the muscular system, the digestive system, etc. Teams create both 3D scale models and presentations to an unnamed wealthy investment firm looking to build a new park in the students’ very own town. This activity was heavily inspired by a post from Danielle Dace.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
This engineering design challenge is a great hands-on activity that utilizes the engineering design process, 3D modeling, and 3D printing technology. The challenge can be completed individually or in groups of 2 to 3. Students will work to complete the following challenge: Using the design process, design, document, model, and produce a toy car with interchangeable parts.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
This project will be focused on designing, constructing and evaluating different containers to determine the optimal design for heat retention. After students have constructed their designs and collected and shared data, students will evaluate the class data to create an optimal design for our culminating event: warming ooey, gooey chocolate chip cookies to perfection! Through this activity, students will learn about energy transfer, engineering design process, data collection, graphing, rate of change, optimization, surface area and proportions. The students will test the effectiveness of their design using Vernier Probes to gather quantitative data and graphing the rate of temperature change. They will then create a poster presentation to share their data to the class. Students will use their mathematical skills to quantitatively analyze the strength and weaknesses of their designs while enjoying some delicious, toasty, warm cookies.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Data Set, Lesson Plan
Students analyze the relationship between wheel radius, linear velocity and angular velocity by using LEGO(TM) MINDSTORMS(TM) NXT robots. Given various robots with different wheel sizes and fixed motor speeds, they predict which has the fastest linear velocity. Then student teams collect and graph data to analyze the relationships between wheel size and linear velocity and find the angular velocity of the robot given its motor speed. Students explore other ways to increase linear velocity by changing motor speeds, and discuss and evaluate the optimal wheel size and desired linear velocities on vehicles.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
Students will examine how technology is changing or eliminated careers that currently exist. Students will draw conclusions and develop hypotheses about these current careers and the changes that could possibly occur based on technology.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
Students are tasked with designing their own experiment to discover why you cannot add fresh pineapple to Jell-O. After analyzing their results, they will construct a CER that will be used to assess their understanding of the concepts.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Assessment
This engineering design challenge is a great hands-on activity that utilizes the engineering design process, 3D modeling, and 3D printing technology. The challenge can be completed individually or in groups of 2 to 3. Students will work to complete the following challenge: Using the design process, design, document, model, and produce a toy car with interchangeable parts.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
This series of lessons will teach all of the key features in Tinkercad, a free, web-based 3D design platform. When you have finished the lessons you will have a comprehensive knowledge of how to design/draw in 3D. After that all you need is practice to improve your skills.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Diagram/Illustration, Interactive, Lesson, Lesson Plan, Teaching/Learning Strategy, Unit of Study
Students make a skydiver and parachute contraption to demonstrate how drag caused by air resistance slows the descent of skydivers as they travel back to Earth. Gravity pulls the skydiver toward the Earth, while the air trapped by the parachute provides an upward resisting force (drag) on the skydiver.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
Students will have the opportunity to work in groups and investigate the effects of an “oil spill” in a water body. In a simulated “ocean” (a pan of water), students will drop a small amount of oil into the water and see the effects and interaction. In an introduction to the workshop, students discuss sources of pollution and oil contamination in water bodies – from point sources (tanker spills) and non-point sources (vehicle run-off). A brief discussion on preventing and cleaning up oil contamination will lead into the activity, in which the students will use a variety of materials to see what method works best for recovering the most oil from the water.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
Literature Based STEM - Book List & Corresponding Activities: Looking for grab-and-go elementary STEM lessons? Looking for a read-aloud to hook an existing STEM lesson? Trying to build a STEM library? Search the spreadsheet by titles, authors, big ideas, themes, and lessons. Whether you are a STEM specialist or a classroom teacher, these lessons will work for you.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson, Lesson Plan, Reading
In this unit, students will learn about the 4Cs (communication, collaboration, creation, and critical thinking) through literature-based engineering challenges. Each lesson focuses on one "C" and one read-aloud. This unit is geared for grades 2-3 but could be adapted to any elementary grade level. COMMUNICATION - Click Clack Moo COLLABORATION - Iggy Peck Architect CRITICAL THINKING - Rosie Revere Engineer CREATION - Galimoto
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson, Lesson Plan, Unit of Study
Ligers exist! But, why does a liger look like a mystical creature? Students will design a simulated genetically engineered animal for a biotechnology engineering firm, which creates newanimals.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
--In this activity student will create an amusement park ride out of KNEX that displays a certain type of motion. They will describe their ride. They will then place it in the correct spot on the map by writing the name of it on the worksheet. After all groups have their rides labeled on the map- students should fill in the lines section of the worksheet- identifying parallel, perpendicular and intersecting lines.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
