Students use a sponge and water model to explore the concept of relative humidity and create a percent scale.
A complete outline, reading comprehension strategies rubric and bibliography for ELA A30. As well, student rubrics for A30.1-A30.3 and a context grid are included.
This activity poses the question: What would happen if a meteor or comet impacted Earth? Students simulate an impact in a container of sand using various-sized rocks, all while measuring, recording and graphing results and conclusions. Then students brainstorm ways to prevent an object from hitting the Earth.
This lesson introduces and describes the main types of erosion (i.e., chemical, water, wind, glacier and temperature). Students learn examples of each type of erosion and discuss how erosion changes the surface of the Earth. Students also learn why engineers need to be aware of the different types of erosion in order to protect structures and landmarks from the damaging effects erosion can cause. Figure 1 is an excellent illustration of water erosion.
Students learn how engineers construct buildings to withstand damage from earthquakes by building their own structures with toothpicks and marshmallows. Students test how earthquake-proof their buildings are by testing them on an earthquake simulated in a pan of Jell-O(TM).
In this self-paced tutorial, learners examine data to determine the relative contribution of what we call natural climate cycles and that of human-caused greenhouse gases to contemporary climate change. Changes in the Earth-Sun geometry over time are explored using interactive digital applets. A section supporting pedagogical techniques that begin with student prior conceptions and a list of common Earth science student misconceptions are included. Vocabulary terms are hot linked to a glossary. This is the sixth of ten self-paced professional development modules providing opportunities for teachers to learn about climate change through first-hand data exploration.
In this activity, students will experience echolocation themselves. They actually try echolocation by wearing blindfolds while another student makes snapping noises in front of, behind, or to the side of them.
Students act as Mars exploratory rover engineers. They evaluate rover equipment options and determine what parts fit in a provided NASA budget. With a given parts list, teams use these constraints to design for their rover. The students build and display their edible rover at a concluding design review.
Students act as Mars exploratory rover engineers, designing, building and displaying their edible rovers to a design review. To begin, they evaluate rover equipment and material options to determine which parts might fit in their given NASA budget. With provided parts and material lists, teams analyze their design options and use their findings to design their rovers.
Students construct model landfill liners using tape and strips of plastic, within resource constraints. The challenge is to construct a bag that is able to hold a cup of water without leaking. This represents similar challenges that environmental engineers face when piecing together liners for real landfills that are acres and acres in size.
As classroom managers, teachers regularly use commands to direct students to start and stop activities. Instructors find commands to be a crucial tool for classroom management, serving as instructional signals that help students to conform to the teacher's expectations for appropriate behaviors.
Students use a watt meter to measure energy input into a hot plate or hot pot used to heat water. The theoretical amount of energy required to raise the water by the measure temperature change is calculated and compared to the electrical energy input to calculate efficiency.
Students use LEGO® motors and generators to raise washers a measured height. They compare the work done by the motor-generator systems with the energy inputs to calculate efficiency.
The purpose of this activity is to recreate the classic egg-drop experiment with an analogy to the Mars rover landing. The concept of terminal velocity will be introduced, and students will perform several velocity calculations. Also, students will have to design and build their lander within a pre-determined budget to help reinforce a real-world design scenario.
One goal of this task is to help students develop comfort and ease with adding fractions with unlike denominators. Another goal is to help them develop fraction number sense by having students decompose fractions. Because the Egyptians represented fractions differently than we do, it can also help students understand that there can be many ways of representing the same number.
The purpose of this task is to strengthen students' understanding of area. It could be assigned in class to individuals or small groups or given as a homework exercise to generate interesting discussions the following day. The relatively high levels of complexity and technical demand enhance its instructional value.
As part of the engineering design process to create testable model heart valves, students learn about the forces at play in the human body to open and close aortic valves. They learn about blood flow forces, elasticity, stress, strain, valve structure and tissue properties, and Young's modulus, including laminar and oscillatory flow, stress vs. strain relationship and how to calculate Young's modulus. They complete some practice problems that use the equations learned in the lesson mathematical functions that relate to the functioning of the human heart. With this understanding, students are ready for the associated activity, during which they research and test materials and incorporate the most suitable to design, build and test their own prototype model heart valves.
This task introduces the fundamental statistical ideas of using data summaries (statistics) from random samples to draw inferences (reasoned conclusions) about population characteristics (parameters). In the task built around an election poll scenario, the population is the entire seventh grade class, the unknown characteristic (parameter) of interest is the proportion of the class members voting for a specific candidate, and the sample summary (statistic) is the observed proportion of voters favoring the candidate in a random sample of class members.
This task introduces the fundamental statistical ideas of using data summaries (statistics) from random samples to draw inferences (reasoned conclusions) about population characteristics (parameters). In the task built around an election poll scenario, the population is the entire seventh grade class, the unknown characteristic (parameter) of interest is the proportion of the class members voting for a specific candidate, and the sample summary (statistic) is the observed proportion of voters favoring the candidate in a random sample of class members.
This task introduces the fundamental statistical ideas of using data summaries (statistics) from random samples to draw inferences (reasoned conclusions) about population characteristics (parameters). In the task built around an election poll scenario, the population is the entire seventh grade class, the unknown characteristic (parameter) of interest is the proportion of the class members voting for a specific candidate, and the sample summary (statistic) is the observed proportion of voters favoring the candidate in a random sample of class members.