Recently Added Curriculum

Students participate in hands-on activities that introduce them to chemical engineering and sustainability. They explore various separation methods, such as distillation, crystallization, and adsorption, and apply these techniques in real-world scenarios. The activity concludes with an engineering design challenge, where students must design a system to separate the components of potting soil and develop strategies to recycle the separated materials, applying their understanding of sustainability and separation processes.

Students explore Young’s Modulus by investigating how materials respond to stress and strain, measuring their stiffness and flexibility using Arduino technology. Through hands-on experimentation, students learn how variations in force application can affect the accuracy of their measurements. Building on this knowledge, they apply the engineering design process to create a device that ensures a consistent pressure and angle during testing, improving the reliability of their results.

Students act as environmental engineers to solve a problem using carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from cars and wildfires. Wildfires are a timely topic because every year they cause people in many areas to face poor air quality. Students use Microsoft Excel to investigate CO2 emitted from two sources: highway traffic and forest fires. They estimate and graph the CO2 emitted by forest fires and from U.S. highway driving annually from 2004 to 2021. After they analyze these two pieces of data, they analyze a specific fire and evacuation that happened in Saratoga Springs in June 2020, named the Knolls Fire. Finally, using the Excel data and the Knolls Fire data, students decide whether the U.S. should spend money on reducing the number and severity of wildfires, or on reducing CO2 emissions from driving cars. The students design and create a poster based on their decision and present it to the class.

Students use common household items to demonstrate different manufacturing processes, such as a blender for milling, a frosting bag for injection molding and extrusion, and their hands for forging. As they complete these tasks, students learn about mass production, bonding of materials, and the factors and components that go into manufacturing, such as cleaning, heat, production, and application in real life. Using three of the four manufacturing methods, students design a habitat for their very own creatures.

Students explore the concept of specific heat capacity by comparing how water and oil respond to heating. Through hands-on experimentation, students measure the temperature changes of both substances over time, graphing their results to determine which has the higher specific heat capacity. Building on this knowledge, students then engage in an engineering design challenge, where they work in teams to design and test a more energy-efficient cooking system. By considering factors such as material type, insulation, and surface area, students create prototypes that minimize heat loss and optimize energy use when heating liquids. After testing and analyzing their designs, students reflect on how different materials and designs affect thermal efficiency and propose improvements to their systems.

Students use an Arduino kit and infrared (IR) sensors to calculate the speed of a moving object. Using kinematic equations, they determine the distance the object travels before hitting the ground. Building on this knowledge, students compete to design and build the most effective projectile launcher. As they refine their launcher designs through the engineering design process, they connect its performance to the principles of projectile motion, incorporating the varying speeds measured by the Arduino.

Students learn how an optical telescope works before designing and building their own telescope to image the moon. Once they design and build their telescope, students test their telescopes by imaging the moon with and without the telescope using their smartphones. This is an excellent way for students to better understand, by doing, the engineering required to make a good telescope and observe the night sky.

Students engage in a hands-on exploration of vision and light reflection by creating a program that simulates light intensity and how our eyes perceive images using the LED display on the micro: bits and its radio feature. After creating a model of an eye, students simulate the light intensity and reflection processes before they work in groups to identify and solve real-world problems related to sunlight and vision. Students utilize the engineering design process to research, imagine, plan, create, test, and improve their solutions, such as reminders for when to wear sunglasses or sunscreen, displays of current sunlight intensity, or determining which materials block light/UV rays.

Students work collaboratively to create a low-cost, easy-to-use device that helps individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS) securely hold a pencil, addressing difficulties with fine motor skills. After learning about MS and discussing how biomedical engineers develop assistive devices, students establish criteria and constraints for their designs. They brainstorm, sketch, and select materials, then build and test their prototypes within a set time. Following testing, they evaluate and improve their designs, ultimately presenting their final devices to the class.

Students explore how the brain enables communication through spoken and written language and how communication is essential for solving problems. Working in groups, students define a problem related to communication, design a solution using a micro:bit, build a prototype, and then test their designs. Possible communication challenges they might tackle are hearing loss, language barriers, or noisy environments. Students follow specific criteria and constraints as they design and build their prototype. After testing their designs and prototypes, students improve their designs as needed. To wrap up, students exchange prototypes with other groups and test each other’s solutions.

Students investigate what happens to plastic packaging material after it is used and thrown away. They then explore what types of materials biodegrade in the soil and how they can be used in place of plastic. Students test various packaging materials that can handle various amounts of weight. They then explore which materials could optimally be used in packaging.

Students learn how seasonal flooding from snowmelt affects rivers and evaluate how changing environmental conditions, such as flood levels and temperatures, influence the distribution and abundance of organisms such as mosquitoes. In this hands-on activity, students build a river model using stream tables to explore the factors that affect water flow and velocity. Using what they learn, students predict how flooding impacts mosquito populations. Finally, they develop a vector control strategy to reduce mosquito populations and help prevent the spread of mosquito-borne diseases.

Students engage in a hands-on exploration of non-destructive evaluation (NDE) through tap testing and sound analysis, using hammers to tap wooden blocks with and without hidden flaws while listening to the sounds produced. Initially, they rely on their hearing to identify differences, and then they progress to digitally recording the tap sounds and applying Fourier transforms to analyze the frequency distribution. To enhance the quality of their recordings, they design and test noise-dampening solutions. The activity is guided by the engineering design process, emphasizing iterative design, experimentation, and critical thinking to help students deepen their understanding of NDE in practical applications.

Students are challenged to design a motor-driven brushing tool that can successfully remove “scum” from a smooth surface while maintaining surface integrity (shine). Students are introduced to the concepts of surface tension, cohesion, adhesion, and friction as they investigate the effects of surface interactions. Students are introduced to the engineering concept of criteria and constraints and the challenge of balancing conflicting goals in a single product. Students work in teams to design, quantitatively test, and iteratively improve a device that maximizes scum removal while minimizing surface wear.

In this activity, students model how scientists must rely on and collaborate with engineers in order to make new scientific discoveries, such as a new star-planet system if “Earth were no longer an option.” Building off the ideas students previously established about what makes Earth and the sun ideal for sustaining life, students begin the engineering design process by brainstorming ideas for how they can determine what something is made of and what tools that would require. Students are then challenged to think whether their method would still work if that “something” is too far away (or deadly) to bring into a lab! After re-evaluating the problem, students are introduced to the basic principles of spectroscopy. By building their own spectrometers using a computer, Arduino, and a SparkFun Spectroscopy Sensor, students are able work through the fundamentals of spectroscopy in a hands-on experience. This activity has students use spectrometry data that they obtained to differentiate among common lab substances, and then identify an unknown substance. They gain practice using technology, interpreting graphs, creating emission spectra diagrams, and forming scientific arguments. Afterward, students apply what they have learned to determine the element composition of stars located in our galaxy and predict which stars have potential for sustaining life.