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Tunnel Through!
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Students apply their knowledge about mountains and rocks to transportation engineering, with the task of developing a model mountain tunnel that simulates the principles behind real-life engineering design. Student teams design and create model tunnels through a clay mountain, working within design constraints and testing for success; the tunnels must meet specific design requirements and withstand a certain load.

Author:
Malinda Schaefer Zarske
Marissa Hagan Forbes
Integrated Teaching and Learning Program,
Denise W. Carlson
Two-Cell Battery
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Students build their own two-cell batteries. They also determine which electrolyte solution is best suited for making batteries.

Author:
Malinda Schaefer Zarske
Integrated Teaching and Learning Program,
Xochitl Zamora Thompson
Denise W. Carlson
Sabre Duren
Daria Kotys-Schwartz
Joe Friedrichsen
Two Sides of One Force
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Students learn more about magnetism, and how magnetism and electricity are related in electromagnets. They learn the fundamentals about how simple electric motors and electromagnets work. Students also learn about hybrid gasoline-electric cars and their advantages over conventional gasoline-only-powered cars.

Author:
Abigail Watrous
Malinda Schaefer Zarske
Integrated Teaching and Learning Program,
Denise W. Carlson
Joe Friedrichsen
Under Pressure
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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.

Author:
Kristin Field
Integrated Teaching and Learning Program,
Denise W. Carlson
Timothy M. Dittrich
Lauren Cooper
Jeff Lyng
Denali Lander
Megan Podlogar
The Universal Language of Engineering Drawings
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Students practice the ability to produce clear, complete, accurate and detailed design drawings through an engineering design challenge. Using only the specified materials, teams are challenged to draw a design for a wind-powered car. Then, they trade engineering drawings with another group and attempt to construct the model cars in order to determine how successfully the original design intentions were communicated through sketches, dimensions and instructions.

Author:
Jacob Crosby, Malinda Schaefer Zarske, Denise W. Carlson
Integrated Teaching and Learning Program,
Viking Ship Design Challenge
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In this design challenge, students learn about the Vikings from an engineering point-of-view. While investigating the history and anatomy of Viking ships, they learn how engineering solutions are shaped by the surrounding environment and availability of resources. Students apply this knowledge to design, build and test their own model Viking ships.

Author:
Malinda Schaefer Zarske
Integrated Teaching and Learning Program,
Lauren Cooper
Denise W. Carlson
Volcanic Panic!
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Students learn about the causes, composition and types of volcanoes. They begin with an overview of the Earth's interior and how volcanoes form. Once students know about how a volcano functions, they learn how engineers predict eruptions. In a class demonstration, students watch and measure a mock volcanic eruption and observe the phases of an eruption, seeing how a volcano gets its shape and provides us with clues to predict a blast.

Author:
Malinda Schaefer Zarske
Integrated Teaching and Learning Program,
Geoffrey Hill
Denise W. Carlson
Watch It Slide!
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Students use inclined planes as they recreate the difficult task of raising a monolith of rock to build a pyramid. They compare the push and pull of different-sized blocks up an inclined plane, determine the angle of inclination, and learn the changes that happen when the angle is increased or decreased.

Author:
Integrated Teaching and Learning Program,
Malinda Schafer Zarske
Travis Reilly
Glen Sirakavit
Lawrence E. Carlson
Denise W. Carlson, with design input from the students in the spring 2005 K-12 Engineering Outreach Corps course.
Jacquelyn F. Sullivan
Watch Out for the Blind Spots
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In this service-learning engineering project, students follow the steps of the engineering design process to design a hearing testing device. More specifically, they design a prototype machine that can be used to test the peripheral vision of partially-blind, pre-verbal children. Students learn about the basics of vision and vision loss. They also learn how a peripheral vision tester for adults works (by testing the static peripheral vision in the four quadrants of the visual field with four controllable lights in specific locations). Then they modify the idea of the adult peripheral vision tester to make it usable for testing young children. The class designs and builds one complete prototype, working in sub-groups of four or five students each to build sub-components of the project design.

Author:
Integrated Teaching and Learning Program,
Malinda Zarske
Denise W. Carlson (This activity was taught at the Denver School for Science and Technology.)
Eszter Horanyi
Jonathan MacNeil
Alison Pienciak
Stephanie Rivale
Water Desalination Plant
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Students use a thermal process approach to design, build and test a small-scale desalination plant that is capable of significantly removing the salt content from a saltwater solution. Students use a saltwater circuit to test the efficiency of their model desalination plant and learn how the water cycle is the basis for the thermal processes that drive their desalination plant.

Author:
Integrated Teaching and Learning Program,
Denise W. Carlson
Carleigh Samson
Stephanie Rivale
Juan Ramirez Jr.
Water and Dams in Today's World
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Students learn about the importance of dams by watching a video that presents historical and current information on dams, as well as descriptions of global water resources and the hydrologic cycle. Students also learn about different types of dams, all designed to resist the forces on dams. (If the free, 15-minute "Water and Dams in Today's World" video cannot be obtained in time, the lesson can still be taught. See the Additional Multimedia Support section for how to obtain the DVD or VHS videotape, or a PowerPoint presentation with similar content [also attached].)

Author:
Sara Born
Kristin Field
Integrated Teaching and Learning Program,
Denise W. Carlson
Lauren Cooper
Denali Lander
TeachEngineering.org
Waterwheel Work
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Students learn the history of the waterwheel and common uses for water turbines today. They explore kinetic energy by creating their own experimental waterwheel from a two-liter plastic bottle. They investigate the transformations of energy involved in turning the blades of a hydro-turbine into work, and experiment with how weight affects the rotational rate of the waterwheel. Students also discuss and explore the characteristics of hydroelectric plants.

Author:
Malinda Schaefer Zarske
Natalie Mach
Integrated Teaching and Learning Program,
Denise W. Carlson
Sabre Duren
Xochitl Zamora-Thompson
We've Come a Long Way, Baby!
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Students discuss several human reproductive technologies available today pregnancy ultrasound, amniocentesis, in-vitro fertilization and labor anesthetics. They learn how each technology works, and that these are ways engineers have worked to improve the health of expecting mothers and babies.

Author:
Malinda Schaefer Zarske
Kristin Field
Integrated Teaching and Learning Program,
Denise W. Carlson
TeachEngineering.org
What Happened to the Water? Designing Ways to Get and Clean Water
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In this scenario-based activity, students design ways to either clean a water source or find a new water source, depending on given hypothetical family scenarios. They act as engineers to draw and write about what they could do to provide water to a community facing a water crisis. They also learn the basic steps of the engineering design process.

Author:
Malinda Schaefer Zarske
Jay Shah
Integrated Teaching and Learning Program,
Denise W. Carlson
What Is Energy? Short Demos
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Three short, hands-on, in-class demos expand students' understand of energy. First, using peanuts and heat, students see how the human body burns food to make energy. Then, students create paper snake mobiles to explore how heat energy can cause motion. Finally, students determine the effect that heat energy from the sun (or a lamp) has on temperature by placing pans of water in different locations.

Author:
Malinda Schaefer Zarske
Natalie Mach
Integrated Teaching and Learning Program,
Denise W. Carlson
Sharon D. Perez-Suarez
What's Air Got to Do with It?
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Students are introduced to the concepts of air pollution and air quality. The three lesson parts focus on the prerequisites for understanding air pollution. First, students use M&Ms to create a pie graph that expresses their understanding of the composition of air. Next, students watch and conduct several simple experiments to develop an understanding of the properties of air (it has mass, it takes up space, it can move, it exerts pressure, it can do work). Finally, students develop awareness and understanding of the daily air quality using the Air Quality Index (AQI) listed in the newspaper. In an associated literacy activity, students explore the environmental history timeline.

Author:
Janet Yowell
Malinda Schaefer Zarske
Natalie Mach
Integrated Teaching and Learning Program,
Denise W. Carlson
Amy Kolenbrander
What to Wear? What to Drink? Weather Patterns and Climatic Regions
Read the Fine Print
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How does our climate affect us? How do we decide what to wear each day? What factors determine if our clothing choices are comfortable? What is the source of our water? Students explore characteristics that define climatic regions. They learn how tropical, desert, coastal and alpine climates result in different lifestyle, clothing, water source and food options for the people who live there. They learn that a location's latitude, altitude, land features, weather conditions, and distance from large bodies of water, determines its climate. Students discuss how engineers help us adapt to all climates by designing clothing, shelters, weather technologies and clean water systems.

Subject:
Applied Science
Atmospheric Science
Engineering
Physical Science
Material Type:
Activity/Lab
Lesson Plan
Author:
Denise W. Carlson
Integrated Teaching and Learning Program,
Jay Shah
Malinda Schaefer Zarske
Date Added:
09/18/2014
Wheeling It In!
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In this open-ended design activity, students use everyday materials milk cartons, water bottles, pencils, straws, candy to build small-scale transportation devices. They incorporate the use two simple machines a wheel and axle, and a lever into their designs. Student pairs choose their materials and engineer solutions suitable to convey pyramid-building materials (small blocks of clay). They race their carts/trucks, measuring distance, time and weight; and then calculate speed.

Author:
Malinda Schaefer Zarske
Integrated Teaching and Learning Program,
Denise W. Carlson
Luz Quiñónez
Jacquelyn Sullivan
Glen Sirakavit, with conceptual input from the students in the spring 2005 K-12 Engineering Outreach Corps course.
Lawrence E. Carlson
Where Has All the Water Gone?
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Students learn about the Earth's water cycle, especially about evaporation. Once a dam is constructed, its reservoir becomes a part of the region's natural hydrologic cycle by receiving precipitation, storing runoff water and evaporating water. Although almost impossible to see, and not as familiar to most people as precipitation, evaporation plays a critical role in the hydrologic cycle, and is especially of interest to engineers designing new dams and reservoirs, such as those that Splash Engineering is designing for Thirsty County.

Author:
Jeff Lyng
Kristin Field
Integrated Teaching and Learning Program,
Denise W. Carlson
Who Robbed the Bank?
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Students use DNA profiling to determine who robbed a bank. After they learn how the FBI's Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) is used to match crime scene DNA with tissue sample DNA, students use CODIS principles and sample DNA fragments to determine which of three suspects matches evidence obtain at a crime location. They communicate their results as if they were biomedical engineers reporting to a police crime scene investigation.

Author:
Malinda Schaefer Zarske
Integrated Teaching and Learning Program,
Frank Burkholder
Denise W. Carlson