Students design, build, and test small-sized vehicle prototypes that transfer various types of potential energy into motion. To complete the “Go-Public” phase of the legacy cycle, students demonstrate their understanding of how potential energy may be transferred into kinetic energy.

This activity focuses on getting students to think about bacteria, water quality, and water treatment processes. Students develop and test their hypotheses about the “cleanliness” of three water samples prepared by the teacher.

Students learn that access to clean water is a significant problem globally, especially in developing countries and during and after natural disasters.

In this hands-on activity, student groups design, build, test, and improve devices to pump water as if they were engineers helping a rural village meet its drinking water supply.

Students create and analyze composite materials—puffed rice cereal, marshmallows, and chocolate chips—to use the materials to construct a structure with optimal strength and minimal density.

Students become environmental engineers as they model membranes and membrane treatments to remove scaling during water filtration.

Students experience firsthand one of the most common water treatment types in the industry today: flocculants. They learn how the amount of suspended solids in water is measured using the fundamental properties of matter and light.

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 learn about the advantages and disadvantages of the greenhouse effect, construct miniature greenhouses, and explore how their designs leverage heat transfer processes to create controlled environments.

Student teams design and create small-size models of working filter systems to simulate multi-stage wastewater treatment plants.