Students explore the phenomenon of electricity as they learn about current electricity and necessary conditions for the existence of an electric current. To make sense of this phenomenon, students construct a simple electric circuit and galvanic cell to help them understand voltage, current, and resistance. They also use the disciplinary core ideas of energy and electric current to better understand the crosscutting concept of energy transfer.

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Why do some objects float while others sink? Students make sense of this phenomenon by engaging in the science and engineering practices of asking questions and defining problems, using models, and designing solutions. Students then apply what they discover to solve everyday situations, such as preventing a car from sinking. In this activity, students build a road out of Jell-O that is sturdy enough to drive a toy car across without getting sinking. Using the full engineering design process, students research and choose available ingredients that will support their car. After research, students investigate which ingredients will help make their Jell-O as strong as possible to protect their car from sinking in the “mud”. They test their prototype to see if the toy car will be able to drive across the Jell-O without sinking. The teams evaluate the process, improve the design, and recreate if needed. Students discuss their design, data, and final results in front of the class.

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music - Bicycle Reunited

Students learn about Pascal's law, an important concept behind the engineering of dam and lock systems, such as the one that Thirsty County wants Splash Engineering to design for the Birdseye River (an ongoing hypothetical engineering scenario). Students observe the behavior of water in plastic water bottles spilling through holes punctured at different heights, seeing the distance water spurts from the holes, learning how water at a given depth exerts equal pressure in all directions, and how water at increasing depths is under increasing pressure.

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Students imagine they are stranded on an island and must create the brightest light possible with the meager supplies they have on hand in order to gain the attention of a rescue airplane. In small groups, students create circuits using items in their "survival kits" to create maximum voltage, measured with a multimeter and two LED lights. To complete the activity, students act as engineers by using the given materials to create circuits that produces the highest voltage and light up the most LED lights. They apply their knowledge of how voltage differs in a series circuit and a parallel circuit to design their solutions.

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Music: Awaken - Anno Domini Beats

Students learn about one-axis rotations, and specifically how to rotate objects both physically and mentally to understand the concept. They practice drawing one-axis rotations through a group exercise using cube blocks to create shapes and then drawing those shapes from various x-, y- and z-axis rotation perspectives on triangle-dot paper (isometric paper). They learn the right-hand rule to explore rotations of objects. A worksheet is provided. This activity is part of a multi-activity series towards improving spatial visualization skills.

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Music: Sky Scraper - Geographer

Students are introduced to Newton's third law of motion: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. They practice identifying action-reaction force pairs for a variety of real-world examples, and draw and explain simplified free-body diagram vectors (arrows) of force, velocity and acceleration for them. They also learn that engineers apply Newton's third law and an understanding of reaction forces when designing a wide range of creations, from rockets and aircraft to door knobs, rifles and medicine delivery systems. This lesson is the third in a series of three lessons intended to be taught prior to a culminating associated activity to complete the unit.

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Music: Awaken

Students develop their understanding of air convection currents and temperature inversions by constructing and observing simple models. Engineers study temperature inversions and convection currents to understand why pollution levels may be higher in some areas than in others. They use this information to reduce pollution levels and determine new pollution prevention programs. They also study convection currents inside buildings to help improve indoor air quality that may be poor due to smoking or fumes from cleaning supplies. Convection currents help to circulate these pollutants, sending them outside of the building.

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Music: Daily Beetle- Kevin MacLeod

To understand how fossils are formed, students model the process of fossilization by making fossils using small toy figures and melted chocolate. They extend their knowledge to the many ways that engineers aid in the study of fossils, including the development of tools and technologies for determining the physical and chemical properties of fossilized organisms, and how those properties tell a story of our changing world.

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Music: Straighty Baby- Audionautix

What are Newton's Laws of motion and how do they affect our daily lives? How do engineers use Newton's Laws to design the products around us? TeachEngineering explores these laws and how they have shaped the world we have today!

Music: It's All Happening - Huma Huma

Students learn about porosity and permeability and relate these concepts to groundwater flow. They use simple materials to conduct a porosity experiment and use the data to understand how environmental engineers decide on the placement and treatment of a drinking water well.
This engineering curriculum aligns to Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).

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Music: California Wind

From brainstorming ideas to testing prototypes, iterating through the design process helps engineers to develop more creative products and processes.

TeachEngineering has over 1,500 FREE lessons and activities. Visit https://www.teachengineering.org/ for more!

Music: Italian Afternoon - Twin Musicom

You’re free to use this song in any of your videos, but you must include the following in your video description:
Italian Afternoon by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Artist: http://www.twinmusicom.org/

After reading the story "Dear Mr. Henshaw" by Beverly Cleary, student groups use the engineering design process to create alarm systems to protect something in the classroom, just as the main character Leigh does to protect his lunchbox from thieves. Students learn about alarms and use their creativity to devise multi-step alarm systems to protect their lockers, desk, pets or classroom door. Note: This activity can also be done without reading the Cleary book.

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Music - Elite Syncopations

Students are introduced to the five fundamental loads: compression, tension, shear, bending and torsion. They learn about the different kinds of stress each force exerts on objects.

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Music: Cats and Gats - Dyalla

Students see how different levels of surface tension affect water's ability to move. Teams "race" water droplets down tracks made of different materials, making measurements, collecting data, making calculations, graphing results and comparing to their predictions and the properties of each surface, determining which surface exhibits the highest (or lowest) level of surface tension with water. They apply their results to make engineering recommendations for real-world applications.

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Music: Bicycle-Reunited by Kevin MacLeod

Through a teacher-led class demo, students observe a simple water cycle model to better understand its role in pollutant transport. Using kitchen or lab equipment, the demo simulates a point source of pollution in a lake and the resulting environmental consequences—one way in which pollution is affected by the water cycle. A student worksheet is provided.
This engineering curriculum aligns to Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).

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Music: Blue Macaw

Students engineer surfaces to control and modify friction and grip as they design and build a tabletop game that uses sliding friction as the main component of its mechanics. Students first observe surface roughness on a variety of surface materials using a digital microscope and explore how engineers use surface modifications to manage friction. They then investigate and compare the friction and grip on multiple surface materials using an inclined plane. Applying the concepts of surface roughness and surface modification, students work as engineering teams to create a tabletop game that uses sliding friction as a main game mechanic. Students go through the steps of the engineering design process, from ideation to prototype development. Students test their own games to balance relevant parameters (surface roughness, speed, board design, game rules, etc.) to improve their prototypes. Students review the prototypes of their peers and offer feedback for further improvements.

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Campfire_Song

Students use scaling from real-world data to obtain an idea of the immense size of Mars in relation to the Earth and the Moon, as well as the distances between them. Students calculate dimensions of the scaled versions of the planets, and then use balloons to represent their relative sizes and locations.

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Music - Ruination_2

Students play the role of engineers as they test, design and build Mentos® fountains—a dramatic example of how potential energy (stored energy) can be converted to kinetic energy (motion). They are challenged to work together as a class to optimize the design of the basic soda/candy geyser made by the teacher. To do this, three research teams each investigate how a different variable—nozzle shape, soda temperature, number of candies—affects fountain height. They devise and run experimental tests to determine the best variable values. Then they combine their results to design the highest fountain to compete head-to-head with the teacher's geyser design.

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Music: Morning Mist

Students come to understand the basics of engineering associated with the use, selection, and properties of fabrics. A wide variety of natural and synthetic fibers are used in our clothing, home furnishings and in our travel and sports equipment. The specific material chosen for each application depends on how closely the properties of the material match the design needs. This activity focuses on the different characteristics of fabrics and shows students how natural and synthetic fabrics differ from one another. Students weigh the advantages and disadvantages of fabrics when considering the appropriate fabric to be used.

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Music - Thingamajig by Audionautix

Students discover fluid dynamics related to buoyancy through experimentation and optional photography. Using one set of fluids, they make light fluids rise through denser fluids. Using another set, they make dense fluids sink through a lighter fluid. In both cases, they see and record beautiful fluid motion. Activities are also suitable as class demonstrations. The natural beauty of fluid flow opens the door to seeing the beauty of physics in general.

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Music: Cycles