Research & Design
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Protective headgear design challenge
Concussions are a common sports injury. After reviewing Newton’s laws of motion, force diagrams, momentum, and elastic and inelastic collisions, students will test various materials that might protect the head from sports collisions and use those materials to design protective headgear. -
Searching for concussion clues
Students will answer questions about the Science News article “Concussion leaves clues in the blood,” which examines the search for a better way to diagnose concussions. -
Designing soundscapes
Drawing on their experiences with how sound behaves in different spaces, students will explore the engineering process by designing and sketching a room to meet specific sound requirements. -
Collaborate with an SN 10 Scientist
With inspiration from the SN 10 scientists, students will explore how their own interests combined with collaboration with a partner can lead to a specific science research question. -
Digital circuit design
Students will practice designing an integrated circuit that can accomplish a simple task. The activity will help students understand that digital circuits are composed of logic gates made up of transistors. -
Step into the shoes of an insect farmer
These discussion prompts ask students to design solutions to problems insect farmers might face and think through the implementation and potential consequences of those solutions. -
Getting source savvy
Students will explore similarities and differences in how scientific research is reported in a journalistic article versus a primary research paper. -
Step into the shoes of a scientist studying ancient locomotion
These discussion prompts encourage students to apply their knowledge of experimental design. -
Martian water challenge
Students will use common materials to design, build and test their own water purification system. -
Three steps to reproducible results
These discussion prompts ask students to define key science terms related to social science, experimental design and statistics, and to dig deeper into the methodology of experimental design. -
Cookieology: Experimental design 101
To explore the steps of experimental design, students will plan an experiment to make an ideal sugar cookie. -
Pick your battles
These discussion prompts encourage students to put themselves in the shoes of researchers studying animal weaponry, by evaluating, proposing and mapping out an experiment.