This lesson provides students with an overview of the electric power industry in the United States. Students also become familiar with the environmental impacts associated with a variety of energy sources.

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.

Students learn about the mechanical advantage offered by pulleys in an interactive and game-like manner. By virtue of the activity's mechatronic presentation, they learn to study a mechanical system not as a static image, but rather as a dynamic system that is under their control. Using a LEGO® MINDSTORMS® robotics platform and common hardware items, students build a mechanized elevator system. The ability to control different parameters (such as motor power, testing load and pulley arrangement) enables the teacher, as well as the students, to emphasize and reinforce particular aspects/effects of mechanical advantage.

Students read and evaluate descriptions of how people live "off the grid" using solar power and come to understand better the degree to which that lifestyle is or is not truly independent of technological, economic and cultural infrastructure and resources. In the process, students develop a deeper appreciation of the meaning of "community" and the need for human connection. This activity is geared towards fifth-grade and older students and Internet research capabilities are required. Portions of this activity may be appropriate with younger students.

Students use balloons (a polymer) to explore preconditioning a viscoelastic material behavior that is important to understand when designing biomedical devices. They improve their understanding of preconditioning by measuring the force needed to stretch a balloon to the same displacement multiple times. Students gain experience in data collection and graph interpretation.

This lesson culminates the unit with the Go Public phase of the legacy cycle. In the associated activity, students depict a tumor amidst healthy body tissue using a Microsoft Excel® graph. In addition, students design a brochure for both patients and doctors advertising a new form of painless yet reliable breast cancer detection. Together, the in-class activity and the take-home assignment function as an assessment of what students have learned throughout the unit.

Acting as civil engineers hired by the U.S. Department of Transportation to research how to best use piezoelectric materials to detect road damage, student groups are challenged to independently create their own experiment procedures, working with given materials and tools. The general approach is that they set up model roads using rubber mats to simulate asphalt and piezoelectric transducers to simulate the in-ground road sensors. They drop heavy bolts at various locations on the “road,” collecting data and then analyzing the voltage changes across the piezoelectric transducers caused by the vibrations of the bolt hitting the rubber. After making notches in the rubber “road” to simulate cracks and potholes, they collect more data to see if the piezo elements detect the damage. Students write up their research and conclusions as if presenting evidence to USDOT officials about how the voltage changes across the piezo elements can be used to indicate road damage and extrapolated to determine when roads need maintenance service.

Students apply what they have learned about the engineering design process to a real-life problem that affects them and/or their school. They chose a problem as a group, and then follow the engineering design process to come up with and test their design solution. This activity teaches students how to use the engineering design process while improving something in the school environment that matters to them. By performing each step of the design process, students can experience what it is like to be an engineer.

Students are introduced to a systematic procedure for solving problems through a demonstration and then the application of the method to an everyday activity. The unit project is introduced to provide relevance to subsequent lessons.

Building on their understanding of graphs, students are introduced to random processes on networks. They walk through an illustrative example to see how a random process can be used to represent the spread of an infectious disease, such as the flu, on a social network of students. This demonstrates how scientists and engineers use mathematics to model and simulate random processes on complex networks. Topics covered include random processes and modeling disease spread, specifically the SIR (susceptible, infectious, resistant) model.

Students investigate the life cycles of engineered products and how they impact the environment. They use a basic life cycle assessment method that assigns fictional numerical values for different steps in the life cycle. Then they use their analyses to compare the impacts of their products to other products, and suggest ways to reduce environmental impact based on their analyses.

In computer science, program analysis is used to determine the behavior of computer programs. Flow charts are an important tool for understanding how programs work by tracing control flow. Control flow is a graphical representation of the logic present in the program. In this lesson, students learn about, design and create flow charts for different scenarios, including a game based on the Battleship® created by Hasbro©. In the associated activity, Flow Charting App Inventor, students apply their knowledge from this lesson and gain experience with a software application called App Inventor. This lesson and its associated activity can be stand-alone or used as a launching point for the Android Acceleration Application unit or any lesson involving App Inventor.

Students watch video clips from October Sky and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone to learn about projectile motion. They explore the relationships between displacement, velocity and acceleration and calculate simple projectile motion. The objective of this activity is to articulate concepts related to force and motion through direct immersive interaction based on the theme, The Science Behind Harry Potter. Students' interest is piqued by the use of popular culture in the classroom.

Students are introduced to the concept of projectile motion, of which they are often familiar from life experiences,such as playing sports such as basketball or baseball, even though they may not understand the physics involved. Students use tabletop-sized robots to build projectile throwers and measure motion using sensors. They compute distances and velocities using simple kinematic equations and confirm their results through measurements by hand. To apply the concept, students calculate the necessary speed of an object to reach a certain distance in a hypothetical scenaro: A group of hikers stranded at the bottom of a cliff need food, but rescuers cannot deliver it themselves, so they must devise a way to get the food to the hikers.

Projections and coordinates are key advancements in the geographic sciences that allow us to better understand the nature of the Earth and how to describe location. These innovations in describing the Earth are the basis for everything that is done in a GIS framework. Shape of the Earth is a critical starting point because in fact the Earth is not round but rather a more complex shape called a geoid. Coordinate systems are often referenced to a particular model shape of the Earth, but many different formats exist because not all coordinates work equally well in all areas. While projections and coordinates are abstract concepts in themselves, students eventually find them interesting because 1) it causes them to challenge their current ideas of the Earth's shape and 2) it is much easier to visualize these ideas for learning through interactive GIS such as Google Earth.

Student teams investigate biomedical engineering and the technology of prosthetics. Students create a model prosthetic lower leg using various materials. Each team demonstrate its prosthesis' strength and consider its pros and cons, giving insight into the characteristics and materials biomedical engineers consider in designing artificial limbs.

Students reinforce their knowledge of the different parts of the digestive system and explore the concept of simulation by developing a pill coating that can withstand the churning actions and acidic environment found in the stomach. Teams test the coating durability by using a clear soda to simulate stomach acid.

Students design and build prototypes for protective eyewear. They choose different activities or sports that require protective eyewear and design a device for that particular use. Students learn about the many ways in which the eyes can be damaged and how engineers incorporate different features and materials into eyewear designs to best protect the eyes.

Students experience the steps of the engineering design process as they design solutions for a real-world problem that could affect their health. After a quick review of the treatment processes that municipal water goes through before it comes from the tap, they learn about the still-present measurable contamination of drinking water due to anthropogenic (human-made) chemicals. Substances such as prescription medication, pesticides and hormones are detected in the drinking water supplies of American and European metropolitan cities. Using chlorine as a proxy for estrogen and other drugs found in water, student groups design and test prototype devices that remove the contamination as efficiently and effectively as possible. They use plastic tubing and assorted materials such as activated carbon, cotton balls, felt and cloth to create filters with the capability to regulate water flow to optimize the cleaning effect. They use water quality test strips to assess their success and redesign for improvement. They conclude by writing comprehensive summary design reports.