An at-home engineering challenge using simple materials to design, build and test a water-powered turbine. Accessible to nearly all ages.
STEAM/Arts
NYU Metro Center designed this tool to help parents, teachers, administrators, students, and community members determine the extent to which their schools’ Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) curricula are (or are not) culturally responsive. This scorecard can be used to evaluate just one discipline of STEAM, like a math curriculum or a science curriculum, or an interdisciplinary curriculum that includes all aspects of STEAM. We hope that this collaborative evaluation process will provoke thinking about what students should learn, how they should learn it, why they should learn it, and how curriculum can be transformed to engage students effectively.
These STEM Packs for grades PreK-5 use picture books to engage students in a series of 40 minute pre-designed STEM lessons with associated materials. Many kits are reusable or easily refurbishable with basic materials. The topics are derived explicitly from NGSS and are aligned with the standards across multiple Disciplinary Core Ideas. CE and AIU co-developed two energy-focused Storytime STEM Packs, including "Boy Who Harnessed the Wind" investigation and engineering design and "My Papi has a Motorcycle" energy use exploration.
Adrift in a Sea of Plastic Unit Plan
In this unit students will investigate the phenomena of plastic trash islands floating in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. The students will work to solve the problem of plastic trash islands through the engineering and design process. Using 3D printers,...
Solar Mobile Design Challenge Unit Plan
This unit involves students learning about transferring solar energy to small motors, exploring the center of gravity and testing light sources (including the sun). The culminating engineering design project gives students the chance to pull...
Unit Plan - Chemical Differences in Emergency Energy Sources
Students develop atomic and molecular models of energy resources, analyze combustion of various fuels and build circuits with Photovolatic (PV) modules to evaluate and suggest revisions to a disaster preparedness supply list. They then research and...
TinkerCAD: Introduction to 3D Printing
This lesson is designed to span 5 days with 50-minute sections. After the introduction day, each day the students work toward mastery on the TinkerCAD tutorial online to learn how to create printable 3D models. At the end of the 4 days the students will...
Individual Independent Projects
The purpose of this lesson is to allow students to choose an area of interest regarding solar power and research it further in a manner of their choice. Students will produce a final product to display or share at the “Salute to the Sun” culminating event...
Exploring Circuits and Optimum Power
This lesson is an exploratory learning cycle that will give the instructor input as to where students are in their understanding of circuits and also scaffolds student learning. This lesson starts by engaging students by using an Energy Stick. Then,...
The Amazing Cardboard Cook-O-Matic
The purpose of this lesson is to introduce the students to the concept of solar ovens and cooking with energy from the sun.
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