To experience the three types of material stress related to rocks — tensional, compressional and shear — students break bars of soap using only their hands. They apply force created by the muscles in their own hands to put pressure on the soap, a model for the larger scale, real-world phenomena that forms, shapes and moves the rocks of our planet. They also learn the real-life implications of understanding stress in rocks, both for predicting natural hazards and building safe structures.

Students learn about the daily and annual cycles of solar angles used in power calculations to maximize photovoltaic power generation. They gain an overview of solar tracking systems that improve PV panel efficiency by following the sun through the sky.

A cost-benefit analysis is a good way to weigh the costs and the benefits and compare them to see if the decisions being made are sound and worthwhile. For a hypothetical solar farm design problem, students are given a solar cost-benefit analysis sheet to complete within groups. They weigh the expense and benefits of two types of solar panels (with different costs, wattage outputs and land impacts), consider the cost of using the acreage for solar (which removes it from ranching use), and explain why they consider the panel combination they propose to be best. If the costs outweigh the benefits, then a project is not worth doing. On the other hand, if the benefits outweigh the costs, then it is worth implementing the plan.

Students learn about solar energy and how to calculate the amount of solar energy available at a given location and time of day on Earth. The importance of determining incoming solar energy for solar devices is discussed.

Students explore energy efficiency, focusing on renewable energy, by designing and building flat-plate solar water heaters. They apply their understanding of the three forms of heat transfer (conduction, convection and radiation), as well as how they relate to energy efficiency. They calculate the efficiency of the solar water heaters during initial and final tests and compare the efficiencies to those of models currently sold on the market (requiring some additional investigation by students). After comparing efficiencies, students explain how they would further improve their devices. Students learn about the trade-offs between efficiency and cost by calculating the total cost of their devices and evaluating cost per percent efficiency and per degree change of the water.

This lesson discusses solenoids. Students learn how to calculate the magnetic field along the axis of a solenoid and complete an activity exploring the magnetic field of a metal slinky. Solenoids form the basis for the magnet of an MRI. Exploring the properties of this solenoid helps students understand the MRI machine.

In this lesson, students are introduced to the historical motivation for space exploration. They learn about the International Space Station as an example of recent space travel innovation and are introduced to new and futuristic ideas that space engineers are currently working on to propel space research far into the future!

Students use the spectrographs from the "Building a Fancy Spectrograph" activity to gather data about light sources. Using their data, they make comparisons between different light sources and make conjectures about the composition of a mystery light source.

Refreshed with an understanding of the six simple machines; screw, wedge, pully, incline plane, wheel and axle, and lever, student groups receive materials and an allotted amount of time to act as mechanical engineers to design and create machines that can complete specified tasks. For the competition, they choose from pre-determined goal options such as: 1) dumping goldfish into a bowl, 2) popping a balloon, or 3) dropping mint candies into soda pop (creating a fizzy reaction). Students demonstrate their functioning contraptions to the class, earning points for using all six simple machines, successful transitions from one chain reaction to the next, and completion of the end goal.

This lab demonstrates Hooke's Law with the use of springs and masses. Students attempt to determine the proportionality constant, or k-value, for a spring. They do this by calculating the change in length of the spring as different masses are added to it. The concept of a spring's elastic limit is also introduced, and the students test to makes sure the spring's elastic limit has not been reached during their lab tests. After compiling their data, they attempt to find an average value of the spring's k-value by measuring the slopes between each of their data points. Then they apply what they've learned about springs to how engineers might use that knowledge in the design of a toy that enables kids to jump 2-3 feet in the air.

To get a better understanding of complex networks, students create their own, real social network example by interacting with their peers in the classroom and documenting the interactions. They represent the interaction data as a graph, calculate two mathematical quantities associated with the graph—the degree of each node and the degree distribution of the graph—and analyze how these quantities can be used to infer properties of the social network at hand.

To navigate, you must know roughly where you stand relative to your designation, so you can head in the right direction. In locations where landmarks are not available to help navigate (in deserts, on seas), objects in the sky are the only reference points. While celestial objects move fairly predictably, and rough longitude is not too difficult to find, it is not a simple matter to determine latitude and precise positions. In this activity, students investigate the uses and advantages of modern GPS for navigation.

Students apply pre-requisite statistics knowledge and concepts learned in an associated lesson to a real-world state-of-the-art research problem that asks them to quantitatively analyze the effectiveness of different cracked steel repair methods. As if they are civil engineers, students statistically analyze and compare 12 sets of experimental data from seven research centers around the world using measurements of central tendency, five-number summaries, box-and-whisker plots and bar graphs. The data consists of the results from carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer patched and unpatched cracked steel specimens tested under the same stress conditions. Based on their findings, students determine the most effective cracked steel repair method, create a report, and present their results, conclusions and recommended methods to the class as if they were presenting to the mayor and city council. This activity and its associated lesson are suitable for use during the last six weeks of the AP Statistics course; see the topics and timing note for details.

Working as if they are engineers aiming to analyze and then improve data collection devices for precision agriculture, students determine how accurate temperature sensors are by comparing them to each other. Teams record soil temperature data during a class period while making changes to the samples to mimic real-world crop conditions—such as the addition of water and heat and the removal of the heat. Groups analyze their collected data by finding the mean, median, mode, and standard deviation. Then, the class combines all the team data points in order to compare data collected from numerous devices and analyze the accuracy of their recording devices by finding the standard deviation of temperature readings at each minute. By averaging the standard deviations of each minute’s temperature reading, students determine the accuracy of their temperature sensors. Students present their findings and conclusions, including making recommendations for temperature sensor improvements.

Students learn that math is important in navigation and engineering. They learn about triangles and how they can help determine distances. Ancient land and sea navigators started with the most basic of navigation equations (speed x time = distance). Today, navigational satellites use equations that take into account the relative effects of space and time. However, even these high-tech wonders cannot be built without pure and simple math concepts — basic geometry and trigonometry — that have been used for thousands of years.

Students engineer a working pair of shin guards for soccer or similar contact sport from everyday materials. Since many factors go into the design of a shin guard, students follow the Engineering Design Process to create a prototype. Along the way, students keep a notebook documenting each stage of the process and reflect on what their learned during the design.

Students work through an online tutorial on MIT's App Inventor to learn how to create Android applications. Using those skills, they create their own applications and use them to collect data from an Android device accelerometer and store that data to databases. NOTE: Teachers and students must have a working knowledge of basic programming and App Inventor to complete this lesson. This lesson is not an introduction to MIT's App Inventor and is not recommended for use without prior knowledge of App Inventor to produce an end product. This lesson is an application for App Inventor that allows for the storage of persistent data (data that remains in memory even if an app is closed). This required prior knowledge can come from other experiences with the App Inventor. Also, many additional resources are available, such as tutorials from MIT. This lesson could also be used as an enrichment project for students who are self-motivated to learn the App Inventor software.

Students are introduced to Hooke's law as well as stress-strain relationships. First they learn the governing equations, then they work through several example problems, first individually, then as a class. Through the lesson's two-part associated activity, students 1) explore Hooke's law by experimentally determining an unknown spring constant, and then 2) apply what they've learned to create a strain graph depicting a tumor using Microsoft Excel®. After the activities, the lesson concludes with a stress-strain quiz to assess each student's comprehension of the concepts.

Students are introduced to the concepts of stress and strain with examples that illustrate the characteristics and importance of these forces in our everyday lives. They explore the factors that affect stress, why engineers need to know about it, and the ways engineers describe the strength of materials. In an associated literacy activity, while learning about the stages of group formation, group dynamics and team member roles, students discover how collective action can alleviate personal feelings of stress and tension.

To introduce the two types of stress that materials undergo compression and tension students examine compressive and tensile forces and learn about bridges and skyscrapers. They construct their own building structure using marshmallows and spaghetti to see which structure can hold the most weight. In an associated literacy activity, students explore the psychological concepts of stress and stress management, and complete a writing activity.