In this activity, students discover the relationship between an object's mass and the amount of space it takes up (its volume). Students learn about the concept of displacement and how an object can float if it displaces enough water, and the concept of density and its relationship to mass and volume.

Finding themselves in the middle of the Amazon rainforest after a plane crash, students use map scales, keys, and longitude and latitude coordinates to figure out where they are. Then they work in groups to generate ideas and make plans. They decide where they should go to be rescued, the distance to that location, the route to take, and make calculations to estimate walking travel time.

Through this earth science curricular unit, student teams are presented with the scenario that an asteroid will impact the Earth. In response, their challenge is to design the location and size of underground caverns to shelter the people from an uninhabitable Earth for one year. Driven by this adventure scenario, student teams 1) explore general and geological maps of their fictional state called Alabraska, 2) determine the area of their classroom to help determine the necessary cavern size, 3) learn about map scales, 4) test rocks, 5) identify important and not-so-important rock properties for underground caverns, and 6) choose a final location and size.

In this lesson, the students will discover the relationship between an object's mass and the amount of space it takes up (its volume). The students will also learn about the concepts of displacement and density.

In this activity, the students test the shelters they built in Lesson 3, Activity 1 for durability and water resistance.

In this lesson, students find their location on a map using Latitude and Longitudinal coordinates. They determine where they should go to be rescued and how best to get there.

Student teams commit to a final decision on the location they recommend for safe underground cavern shelter for the citizens of Alabraska. They prepare and deliver final presentations to defend their final decisions to the class.

In this lesson, the students will summarize their experiences in the Amazon rainforest by developing and presenting a briefing for a T.V. evening news program.

In this activity, the students will develop a briefing for a T.V. evening news program that summarizes their experiences surviving in the Amazon rainforest. The students will have the opportunity to role play as interviewer and interviewee in presentations to the class.

In this activity, the students will investigate a variety of plants and animals common to the Amazon through research. They will determine the plant or animal characteristics that make them edible or useful for the trip and learn to categorize them by comparing similarities and/or differences.

In this lesson, the students will investigate what types of plants and insects they could eat to survive in the Amazon. They will research various plants and/or insects and identify characteristics that make them edible or useful for the trip. The students will create posters and present their findings to the class.

In this activity, the students will use wax paper shaped as leaves and kite string to build a shelter to protect them from the rain. The students will then test the shelters for durability and water resistance.

Students teams determine the size of the caverns necessary to house the population of the state of Alabraska from the impending asteroid impact. They measure their classroom to determine area and volume, determine how many people the space could sleep, and scale this number up to accommodate all Alabraskans. They work through problems on a worksheet and perform math conversions between feet/meters and miles/kilometers.

In this activity, students conduct an investigation to purify water. They engineer a method for cleaning water, discover the most effective way to filter water, and practice conducting a scientific experiment. Through this activity and its associated lesson, student teams follow the steps of the engineering design process related to water treatment, as done by practicing engineers, including constructing and testing their designs.

The Lost in the Amazon curricular unit is a series of minds-on and hands-on engineering activities based on an adventure scenario set in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. Students imagine themselves to be a team of EnviroTech engineers returning to the U.S. from a conference in Brasilia, Brazil. When their plane crashes deep in the Amazon forest, they work in groups to overcome various obstacles in their quest to survive and reach the nearest city as quickly and safely as possible. Motivated by this adventurous theme, students discover, learn and apply the following: 1) classification of plants and insects; 2) general categorizing skills; 3) process skills: problem solving and critical thinking; 4) scientific testing and experimentation; 5) materials properties.

In this lesson, the students will build a shelter in order to protect themselves from the rain. After the shelters are built, the class will perform durability and water proof testing on the shelters.

Students use their knowledge of scales and areas to determine the best locations in Alabraska for the underground caverns. They cut out rectangular paper pieces to represent caverns to scale with the maps and place the cut-outs on the maps to determine feasible locations.

Student teams assign importance factors, called "desirability points," the rock properties found in the previous lesson/activity in order to mathematically determine the overall best rocks for building caverns within. They learn the real-world connections and relationships between the rock and the important engineering properties for designing and building caverns (or tunnels, mines, building foundations, etc.).

Students test rocks to identify their physical properties (such as luster, hardness, color, etc.) and classify them as igneous, metamorphic or sedimentary. They complete a worksheet table to record all of the rock properties, and then answer worksheet questions to deepen their understanding of rock properties and relate them to the cavern design problem.

Students learn how to determine map distances and areas using the map scale. They get a feel for how much an area represents on the map in relation to the size they are suggesting for their underground caverns to shelter the Alabraska population.