Students gain an understanding of the factors that affect wind turbine operation. Following the steps of the engineering design process, engineering teams use simple materials (cardboard and wooden dowels) to build and test their own turbine blade prototypes with the objective of maximizing electrical power output for a hypothetical situation—helping scientists power their electrical devices while doing research on a remote island. Teams explore how blade size, shape, weight and rotation interact to achieve maximal performance, and relate the power generated to energy consumed on a scale that is relevant to them in daily life. A PowerPoint® presentation, worksheet and post-activity test are provided.

Students gain a basic understanding of the properties of media soil, sand, compost, gravel and how these materials affect the movement of water (infiltration/percolation) into and below the surface of the ground. They learn about permeability, porosity, particle size, surface area, capillary action, storage capacity and field capacity, and how the characteristics of the materials that compose the media layer ultimately affect the recharging of groundwater tables. They test each type of material, determining storage capacity, field capacity and infiltration rates, seeing the effect of media size on infiltration rate and storage. Then teams apply the testing results to the design their own material mixes that best meet the design requirements. To conclude, they talk about how engineers apply what students learned in the activity about the infiltration rates of different soil materials to the design of stormwater management systems.

Following the steps of the iterative engineering design process, student teams use what they learned in the previous lessons and activity in this unit to research and choose materials for their model heart valves and test those materials to compare their properties to known properties of real heart valve tissues. Once testing is complete, they choose final materials and design and construct prototype valve models, then test them and evaluate their data. Based on their evaluations, students consider how they might redesign their models for improvement and then change some aspect of their models and retest aiming to design optimal heart valve models as solutions to the unit's overarching design challenge. They conclude by presenting for client review, in both verbal and written portfolio/report formats, summaries and descriptions of their final products with supporting data.

Using the same method for measuring friction that was used in the previous lesson (Discovering Friction), students design and conduct an experiment to determine if weight added incrementally to an object affects the amount of friction encountered when it slides across a flat surface. After graphing the data from their experiments, students can calculate the coefficients of friction between the object and the surface it moved upon, for both static and kinetic friction.

In the first part of the activity, each student chews a piece of gum until it loses its sweetness, and then leaves the gum to dry for several days before weighing it to determine the amount of mass lost. This mass corresponds to the amount of sugar in the gum, and can be compared to the amount stated on the package label. In the second part of the activity, students work in groups to design and conduct new experiments based on questions of their own choosing. These questions arise naturally from observations during the first experiment, and from students' own experiences with and knowledge of the many varieties of chewing and bubble gums available.

Kids news articles! Kids current events; plus kids news on science, social studies, sports, world, environment and more!

Printable board games, activities and more for phonics and reading all using evidence-based methods. Can be customized to any student's needs including creating flashcards for other subjects.

My artifact is an inquiry project for Doing the Right Thing in ELA 9. This artifact focuses on creativity as students are required to complete a project through creative media and work on an individual challenge or issue that is important to them. This project requires students to think critically and innovatively. The project consists of six phases that help break down the task of creating such a product.

Have you ever been interested in what it really costs to live somewhere per month?

Dollar Street let's you explore how others live all over the world based on their monthly income. You can click the photos to learn ore about the families pictured.

See how people really live.

The purpose of this task to help students think about an expression for a function as built up out of simple operations on the variable, and understand the domain in terms of values for which each operation is invalid (e.g., dividing by zero or taking the square root of a negative number).

Student teams find solutions to hypothetical challenge scenarios that require them to sustainably manage both resources and wastes. They begin by creating a card representing themselves and the resources (inputs) they need and wastes (outputs) they produce. Then they incorporate additional cards for food and energy components and associated necessary resources and waste products. They draw connections between outputs that provide inputs for other needs, and explore the problem of using linear solutions in resource-limited environments. Then students incorporate cards based on biorecycling technologies, such as algae photobioreactors and anaerobic digesters in order to make circular connections. Finally, the student teams present their complete biorecycling engineering solutions to their scenarios in poster format by connecting outputs to inputs, and showing the cycles of how wastes become resources.

This art history video discussion looks at Donald Judd's "Untitled", 1969, ten copper units, each 9 x 40 x 31 inches with 9 inch intervals (Guggenheim Museum, New York).

This art history video discussion examines Donatello's "St. Mark", 1411-13, marble, 93" (236 cm), Orsanmichele, Florence.

This art history video discussion examines Donatello's "David", bronze, late 1420s to the 1460s, likey the 1440s (Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence).

In this Smarthistory video Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker discuss Donatello's "Equestrian Monument of Gattamelata" (Erasmo da Narni), 1445-53, bronze, in the Piazza del Santo, at Padua.

This art history video discussion examines Donatello's "Feast of Herod", panel on the baptismal font of Siena Cathedral, Siena, Italy, Gilded bronze,1423--1427.

This art history video discussion examines Donatello's "Madonna of the Clouds", c. 1425--35, marble, 33.1 x 32 cm / 13 1/16 x 12 5/8 inches (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston).

Students' understanding of how robotic ultrasonic sensors work is reinforced in a design challenge involving LEGO MINDSTORMS(TM) NXT robots and ultrasonic sensors. Student groups program their robots to move freely without bumping into obstacles (toy LEGO people). They practice and learn programming skills and logic design in parallel. They see how robots take input from ultrasonic sensors and use it to make decisions to move, resulting in behavior similar to the human sense of sight but through the use of sound sensors, more like echolocation. Students design-test-redesign-retest to achieve successful programs. A PowerPoint® presentation and pre/post quizzes are provided.

Students investigate the difference between qualitative and quantitative measurements and observations. By describing objects both qualitatively and quantitatively, they learn that both types of information are required for complete descriptions. Students discuss the characteristics of many objects, demonstrating how engineers use both qualitative and quantitative information in product design.

Student groups are provided with a generic car base on which to design a device/enclosure to protect an egg on or in the car as it rolls down a ramp at increasing slopes. During this in-depth physics/science/technology activity, student teams design, build and test their creations to meet the design challenge, and are expected to perform basic mathematical calculations using collected data, including a summative cost to benefit ratio.