“Excel”ing After The Apocalypse Congratulations! You are one of the chosen few! The challenge: keep surviving! You are being sent to one of the government-designed pods. Everyone in the biosphere has been thoroughly screened and their job assigned. You have been assigned to the civil engineering team and must determine how the land will be…
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Mars Rover: Can You Hear Me? Can You See Me? As we proceed into the future, space exploration is becoming an essential part of our own growth as humans. Space exploration requires innovative, creative, adaptable people to develop the technology necessary for these grand endeavors into new environments. Specifically, the first settlers on Mars will…
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Protecting Precious Cargo In most car accidents, the bumper is the first point of impact and defense. The better the bumper is designed, the less possibility for damage and injury. Impact barriers, such as the barrels you see at a highway exit or the barriers separating oncoming traffic, are also important for limiting vehicle damage…
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Droppin’ the Beat In this unit, students explore the ways to dampen, mask, or stop a sound wave from propagating into a system (or material) and the surrounding environment. Students research and explore how sound waves are propagated and transmitted through various media. In the engineering design challenge, students will use their acquired knowledge to…
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Little Red(?) Running Vest Students conduct scientific investigations and use the engineering design process to solve a problem related to an adaptation of the story of Little Red Riding Hood. The scientific investigations engage students in gaining knowledge about light and sound, materials, data collection and analysis, and human performance. Students create and test their…
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Pollution Solution: Community Aquifer Contaminants Students will assume the role of an environmental engineering EPA officer for this lesson. They will investigate a contaminated off-site residential property and will try to determine the source of contamination. Surrounding the property are Wright Patterson Air Force Base, a dry cleaner, and a corporate farm. Students will investigate…
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Lunchbox of the Future Working people, school children, and others pack meals to take with them that will be eaten later in the day, however, there may not be access to refrigeration or the capability to heat their food. Students will design and build a lunchbox that will maintain two different temperatures in different sections…
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Science Rocks Student teams engineer a computer program that sorts rocks based on properties in order to identify a specific rock within a Rock Family. Teams identify properties of rocks, then utilize a dichotomous key to sort them by the properties. Students collaboratively engineer a PowerPoint with guiding questions to identify each rock type; thereby,…
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Can You Stand on Me? Visitors to schools in underdeveloped countries have found that students suffer from a lack of technology. Some students do not even have access to a flat surface on which to write. Service groups and industries in the United States, have shown interest in providing learning materials for students of such schools.…
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“Fish-y” Gardening In this 7th grade unit, student teams design and construct a small/micro-scale symbiotic aquaponic system that can be used by populations lacking natural resources needed to provide and cultivate a sustainable, nutrient-rich food source. This unit engages students in participating in an engineering design challenge in which they create a viable farming method…
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