Students investigate the weather from a systems approach, learning how individual parts of a system work together to create a final product. Students learn how a barometer works to measure the Earth's air pressure by building a model using simple materials. Students analyze the changes in barometer measurements over time and compare those to actual weather conditions. They learn how to use a barometer to understand air pressure and predict actual weather changes.

A bungee jump involves jumping from a tall structure while connected to a large elastic cord. Design a bungee jump that is "safe" for a hard-boiled egg. Create a safety egg harness and connect it to a rubber band, which is your the "bungee cord." Finally, attach your bungee cord to a force sensor to measures the forces that push or pull your egg.

This activity was designed for blind learners, but all types of learners can use it to design and build a catapult that will toss a marshmallow or pompom over a distance of at least 12 inches, using the appropriate materials and tools safely.

Facies models are often abstract and difficult for undergraduate students to fully understand. As a result, they tend to memorize idealized diagrams from text books that can be reproduced for an exam, then forgotten.

The purpose of this exercise is to help students understand a model by "building" it "piece by piece" and relating the various components to concepts they learned earlier in the semester, such as energy relationships, base level, facies, facies associations, and Walther's Law. It is designed to begin as an in-class discussion led by the instructor using a black or white board, followed by group collaboration, out-of-class exercises, and concluding with a formal examination.

The example provided here is for a prograding shoreface system; however, the same approach can be applied to any depositional system.

This is an lesson about spectrographs. Learners will build and decorate their own spectrographs using simple materials and holographic diffraction gratings. After building the spectrographs, they observe the spectra of different light sources. Requires advance preparation to spray-paint the inside of the containers black the day before construction. The activity is part of Project Spectra, a science and engineering program for middle-high school students, focusing on how light is used to explore the Solar System.

Students create and decorate their own spectrographs using simple materials and holographic diffraction gratings. A holographic diffraction grating acts like a prism, showing the visual components of light. After building the spectrographs, students observe the spectra of different light sources as homework.

This task is for instructional purposes only and builds on ``Building an explicit quadratic function.''

Students will learn to mind their ps and qs in this lesson on etiquette and appropriate behavior in the classroom.

Students build a stratigraphic column for a pre-selected area through the compilation of a series of individual research projects. Students are required to conduct introductory field research as well as a literature search to become "experts" on a selected stratigraphic unit. In addition to a final report, students will present their information at an outcrop on an end-of-semester field trip.

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In this author study, students listen to and discuss four books by Leo Lionni. They identify similarities and differences in the stories and then compare two stories of their choice.

Students learn how to build simple piezoelectric generators to power LEDs. To do this, they incorporate into a circuit a piezoelectric element that converts movements they make (mechanical energy) into electrical energy, which is stored in a capacitor (short-term battery). Once enough energy is stored, they flip a switch to light up an LED. Students also learn how much (surprisingly little) energy can be converted using the current state of technology for piezoelectric materials.

This is a hands-on activity to assess the students understanding of peptide and disulfide bonds formed during protein synthesis. Students demonstrate the process of dehydration synthesis by combining amino acids through peptide bonds creating molecules of water, and one protein amino acid strand. It can also be used to assess students understanding of the process of translation.

The center of this sequence of assignments is a collaborative, "New Media" writing project that involves publishing to a wiki a synthesis of knowledge about how humans inhabit places. Writers work in groups with others interested in a common sub-topic and develop information related to local places that local audiences who are invited to join the wiki may use.

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This is the first of a series of task aiming at understanding the quadratic formula in a geometric way in terms of the graph of a quadratic function.

Students learn about refracting telescopes in this Moveable Museum unit, in which they construct a simple telescope. The three-page PDF guide includes suggested general background readings for educators, activity notes, step-by-step directions, and information about where to obtain supplies.

This activity was designed for blind learners, but all types of learners can use it to discover how changing the shape of a material such as newspaper can create a stronger building material, then build a model of a skyscraper using the adapted material.

Students learn about the variations of white light in this Moveable Museum unit, in which they build a pocket-sized spectroscope from readily available materials and examine different light sources in school, at home, and around their town or city. The seven-page PDF guide includes suggested general background readings for educators, activity and safety notes, step-by-step directions, and a spectroscope template.

Students create and analyze composite materials with the intent of using the materials to construct a structure with optimal strength and minimal density. The composite materials are made of puffed rice cereal, marshmallows and chocolate chips. Student teams vary the concentrations of the three components to create their composite materials. They determine the material density and test its compressive strength by placing weights on it and measuring how much the material compresses. Students graph stress vs. strain and determine Young's modulus to analyze the strength of their materials.

This task applies reflections to a regular hexagon to construct a pattern of six hexagons enclosing a seventh: the focus of the task is on using the properties of reflections to deduce this seven hexagon pattern.

This task applies reflections to a regular octagon to construct a pattern of four octagons enclosing a quadrilateral: the focus of the task is on using the properties of reflections to deduce that the quadrilateral is actually a square.