What if you were on a high floor of a skyscraper and the building started swaying? Today we’ll explore statics and dynamics, and what they mean for the structures we design. We look at the idea of static equilibrium, forces, and torques, and how free body diagrams can help us make sense of it all.
Students become familiar with the concept of a communication system, its various parts and functions. To do this, they encode, decode, transmit, receive and store messages for a hypothetical rescue mission, using a code sheet and flashlight for this process.They also maintain storage sheets from which they can retrieve information as it is required.
This activity is about rocket shape and performance. Learners will test a rocket model and predict its motion. They will launch their rocket multiple times, make observations and record the distance it traveled. They will have the opportunity to answer a research question by collecting and analyzing data related to finding out the best nose cone length and predicting the motion of their model rockets. The lesson models the engineering design process using the 5E instructional model and includes teacher notes, vocabulary, student journal and reading.
In this activity book, your students will study five key stages in the lifecycle of a solar storm, from its emergence on the solar surface to its impact upon some aspect of our lives. The book may be used in its entirety to study solar activity and how it directly affects us, or you may use individual activities of your choice as stand-alone mini lessons as an enrichment for math and physical science courses. The student activities emphasize basic cognitive skills and higher-order processes such as plotting data, searching for patterns and correlations, and interpreting the results. By the end of the activity series, students will understand why we need to pay more attention to solar storms.
This is a reading associated with activities during Solar Week, a twice-yearly event in March and October during which classrooms are able to interact with scientists studying the Sun. Outside of Solar Week, information, activities, and resources are archived and available online at any time. This is a blog entry about the process by which rocket payloads are assembled prior to launch. It was written by one of the female team members associated with a NASA sounding rocket launch program. The blog entry reading is scheduled to occur during Friday of Solar Week.
This is an online lesson associated with activities during Solar Week, a twice-yearly event in March and October during which classrooms are able to interact with scientists studying the Sun. This activity is scheduled to occur during Monday of Solar Week. The lesson introduces the concept of astronomical filters and their connections to imaging different objects in space. Learners will explore perceptions of images as seen using different colors of light, construct a filter wheel, and practice investigating various astronomical images using the filter wheel. This material was designed to highlight how filters are useful to astronomers and show how a real astronomical telescope uses filters to image the Sun. Outside of Solar Week, information, activities, and resources are archived and available online at any time.
This is a reading associated with activities during Solar Week, a twice-yearly event in March and October during which classrooms are able to interact with scientists studying the Sun. Outside of Solar Week, information, activities, and resources are archived and available online at any time. Learners will read about how scientists observe the Sun using imagery and telescopes. Links to other online resources are included. This activity is scheduled to occur during Tuesday of Solar Week.
This is an online game associated with activities during Solar Week, a twice-yearly event in March and October during which classrooms are able to interact with scientists studying the Sun. Outside of Solar Week, information, activities, and resources are archived and available online at any time. This is a scavenger hunt game to allow learners to review science concepts covered in previous activities. This game is scheduled to occur during Tuesday of Solar Week.
This lesson discusses solenoids. Students learn how to calculate the magnetic field along the axis of a solenoid and complete an activity exploring the magnetic field of a metal slinky. Solenoids form the basis for the magnet of an MRI. Exploring the properties of this solenoid helps students understand the MRI machine.
This is a lesson about using the light from the star during an occultation event to identify the atmosphere of a planet. Learners will add and subtract light curves (presented as a series of geometrical shapes) to understand how this could occur. The activity is part of Project Spectra, a science and engineering program for middle-high school students, focusing on how light is used to explore the Solar System.
Students use a simple seesaw to visualize solving a two- or three-step mathematics equation, while solving a basic structural engineering weight balance problem in the process. They solve two-step equations on a worksheet and attempt to solve the challenge of "balancing a beam" through hands-on problems. The use of sensor equipment for correct position monitoring aids students in balancing the structure, as well as balancing the equation as they solve it on paper.
Students learn the connections between the science of sound waves and engineering design for sound environments. Through three lessons, students come to better understand sound waves, including how they change with distance, travel through different mediums, and are enhanced or mitigated in designed sound environments. They are introduced to audio engineers who use their expert scientific knowledge to manipulate sound for music and film production. They see how the invention of the telephone pioneered communications engineering, leading to today's long-range communication industry and its worldwide impact. Students analyze materials for sound properties suitable for acoustic design, learning about the varied environments created by acoustical engineers. Hands-on activities include modeling the placement of microphones to create a specific musical image, modeling and analyzing a string telephone, and applyling what they've learned about sound waves and materials to model a controlled sound room.
In this lesson, students are introduced to communications engineers as people who enable long-range communication. In the lesson demonstration, students discuss the tendency of sound to diminish with distance and model this phenomenon using a slinky. Finally, Alexander Graham Bell is introduced as the inventor of the telephone and a pioneer in communications engineering.
This unit begins by introducing students to the historical motivation for space exploration. They learn about the International Space Station, including current and futuristic ideas that engineers are designing to propel space research. Then they learn about the physical properties of the Moon, and think about what types of products engineers would need to design in order for humans to live on the Moon. Lastly, students learn some descriptive facts about asteroids, such as their sizes and how that relates to the potential danger of an asteroid colliding with the Earth.
This collection of activities is based on a weekly series of space science mathematics problems distributed during the 2012-2013 school year. They were intended for students looking for additional challenges in the math and physical science curriculum in grades 5 through 12. The problems were created to be authentic glimpses of modern science and engineering issues, often involving actual research data. The problems were designed to be one-pagers with a Teacher‰Ûªs Guide and Answer Key as a second page.
This site provides fun activities for children to do and make, while they learn about space and Earth science, and the technology that enables science. The Teachers Corner on the WWW site contains curriculum supplements originally published in the ITEA (International Technology Education Association) Technology Transfer Teacher magazine.
This activity introduces the electromagnetic spectrum. A riddle is proposed and users stroll through an imaginary amusement park to identify the object being described. During the journey, they discover the different types of electromagnetic energy and learn about telescopes that see the universe in these different parts of the spectrum.
This is an activity about how giant dish antennas work. Learners create a "sound cone" and use it to understand how the Deep Space Network antennas pick up radio communications from space.
This is a game about data compression. Learners will use virtual foam balls to explore the different compression methods (lossless, lossy, and superchannel) used by the Earth Observing 3 mission.
This article describes the multi-camera instrument (Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer or MISR) aboard the Terra Satellite; participants use information from the article to complete a crossword puzzle. A supplemental article entitled, "Clouds and Earth" is included. The article is targeted to children ages 10-12.