The "Cultivating Our Culture, Conserving Our Land" challenge is an initiative tailored for classrooms throughout the Virgin Islands, encouraging them to engage in environmental stewardship activities interwoven with the cultural heritage and history of the territory. This challenge aims to inspire classrooms to develop and execute projects addressing local environmental issues while highlighting the cultural and historical significance of the Virgin Islands. It also fosters a deeper understanding among students of their role as stewards of both their natural and cultural heritage. By encouraging collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking in solving environmental challenges with a cultural perspective, the challenge provides a unique platform for holistic learning and community engagement.Challenge submissions due on April 19th, 2024Submittal form here

The Digital Storytelling and Oral History Project is a student-centered initiative designed to connect young learners with the heritage stories of their community's past through the art of storytelling and the practice of oral history collection. This project encourages students to become active participants in the preservation of their cultural heritage by engaging with elders, community leaders, and family members to document stories, legends, personal histories, and the lived experiences of their community. 

Students learn more about assistive devices, specifically biomedical engineering applied to computer engineering concepts, with an engineering challenge to create an automatic floor cleaner computer program. Following the steps of the design process, they design computer programs and test them by programming a simulated robot vacuum cleaner (a LEGO® robot) to move in designated patterns. Successful programs meet all the design requirements.

Students are introduced to the challenge question, which revolves around proving that a cabinet x-ray system can produce bone mineral density images. Students work independently to generate ideas from the questions provided, then share with partners and then with the class as part of the Multiple Perspectives phase of this unit. Then, as part of the associated activity, students explore multiple websites to gather information about bone mineral density and answer worksheet questions, followed by a quiz on the material covered in the articles.

In this interactive activity from the Building Big Web site, use your knowledge of bridge design to match the right bridge to the right location in a fictitious city.

Students learn and apply concepts in thermodynamics and energy—mainly convection, conduction, and radiation— to solve a challenge. This is accomplished by splitting students into teams and having them follow the engineering design process to design and build a small insulated box, with the goal of keeping an ice cube and a Popsicle from melting. Students are given a short traditional lecture to help familiarize them with the basic rules of thermodynamics and an introduction to materials science while they continue to monitor the ice within their team’s box.

In this interactive activity from the Building Big Web site, investigate dams in distress and decide if they should be repaired, removed, or left alone.

Students practice the initial steps involved in an engineering design challenge. They begin by reviewing the steps of the engineering design loop and discussing the client need for the project. Next, they identify a relevant context, define the problem within their design teams, and examine the project's requirements and constraints. (Note: Conduct this activity in the context of a design project that students are working on, which could be a challenge determined by the teacher, brainstormed with the class, or the example project challenge provided [to design a prosthetic arm that can perform a mechanical function].)

In this interactive activity from the Building Big Web site, think like an engineer and use your knowledge of dome design to match the right type of dome to the right location in a fictitious city.

Student teams are challenged to navigate a table tennis ball through a timed obstacle course using only the provided unconventional “tools.” Teams act as engineers by working through the steps of the engineering design process to complete the overall task with each group member responsible to accomplish one of the obstacle course challenges. Inspired by the engineers who helped the Apollo 13 astronauts through critical problems in space, students must be innovative with the provided supplies to use them as tools to move the ball through the obstacles as swiftly as possible. Groups are encouraged to communicate with each other to share vital information. The course and tool choices are easily customizable for varied age groups and/or difficulty levels. Pre/post assessment handouts, competition rules and judging rubric are provided.

During this engineering design/build project, students investigate many different solutions to a problem. Their design challenge is to find a way to get school t-shirts up into the stands during home sporting events. They follow the steps of the engineering design process to design and build a usable model, all while keeping costs under budget.

Students engage in the second design challenge of the unit, which is an extension of the maze challenge they solved in the first lesson/activity of this unit. Students extend the ideas learned in the maze challenge with a focus more on the robot design. Gears are a very important part of any machine, particularly when it has a power source such as engine or motor. Specifically, students learn how to design the gear train from the LEGO MINDSTORMS(TM) NXT servomotor to the wheel to make the LEGO taskbot go faster or slower. A PowerPoint® presentation, pre/post quizzes and a worksheet are provided.

Student teams follow the steps of the engineering design process to meet the challenge of getting their entire class from one location on the playground to the sidewalk without touching the ground between. The class develops a well thought-out plan while following the steps of the engineering design process. Then, they test their solution by going outside and trying it out. Through the post-activity assessment, they compare their problem-solving experience to real life engineering challenges, such as creating new forms of transportation or new product invention.

Through four lessons and four hands-on associated activities, this unit provides a way to teach the overarching concept of energy as it relates to both kinetic and potential energy. Within these topics, students are exposed to gravitational potential, spring potential, the Carnot engine, temperature scales and simple magnets. During the module, students apply these scientific concepts to solve the following engineering challenge: "The rising price of gasoline has many effects on the US economy and the environment. You have been contracted by an engineering firm to help design a physical energy storage system for a new hybrid vehicle for Nissan. How would you go about solving this problem? What information would you consider to be important to know? You will create a small prototype of your design idea and make a sales pitch to Nissan at the end of the unit." This module is built around the Legacy Cycle, a format that incorporates findings from educational research on how people best learn. This module is written for a first-year algebra-based physics class, though it could easily be modified for conceptual physics.

Students are presented with an engineering challenge: To design a sustainable guest village within the Saguaro National Park in Arizona. Through four lessons and six associated activities, they study ecological relationships with an emphasis on the Sonoran Desert. They examine species adaptations. They come to appreciate the complexity and balance that supports the exchange of energy and matter within food webs. Then students apply what they have learned about these natural relationships to the study of biomimicry and sustainable design. They study the flight patterns of birds and relate their functional design to aeronautical engineering. A computer simulation model is also incorporated into this unit and students use this program to examine perturbations within a simple ecosystem. The solution rests within the lessons and applications of this unit.

Students learn and use the properties of light to solve the following challenge: "A mummified troll was discovered this summer at our school and it has generated lots of interest worldwide. The principal asked us, the technology classes, to design a security system that alerts the police if someone tries to pilfer our prized possession. How can we construct a system that allows visitors to view our artifact during the day, but invisibly protects it at night in a cost-effective way?"

Student groups are challenged to program robots with light sensors to follow a black line. Learning both the logic and skills behind programming robots for this challenge helps students improve their understanding of how robots "think" and widens their appreciation for the complexity involved in programming LEGO® MINDSTORMS® NXT robots to do what appears to be a simple task. They test their ideas for approaches to solve the problem and ultimately learn a (provided) working programming solution. They think of real-world applications for line-follower robots that use sensor input. A PowerPoint® presentation and pre/post quizzes are provided.

As the first engineering design challenge of the unit, students are introduced to the logic for solving a maze. First they observe a blindfolded student volunteer being guided through a classroom maze by the simple verbal instructions of another student. In this demonstration, the blindfolded student represents a robot and the guiding student represents programming commands. Then student groups apply that logic to program LEGO MINDSTORMS(TM) NXT robots to navigate through a maze, first with no sensors, and then with sensors. A PowerPoint® presentation, pre/post quizzes and a worksheet are provided.

Students further their understanding of the engineering design process (EDP) while being introduced to assistive technology devices and biomedical engineering. They are given a fictional client statement and are tasked to follow the steps of the EDP to design and build small-scale, off-road wheelchair prototypes. As part of the EDP, students identify appropriate materials and demonstrate two methods of representing solutions to their design problem (scale drawings and simple scale models). They test the scale model off-road wheelchairs using spring scales to pull the prototypes across three different simulated off-road surfaces.

Using paper, paper clips and tape, student teams design flying/falling devices to stay in the air as long as possible and land as close as possible to a given target. Student teams use the steps of the engineering design process to guide them through the initial conception, evaluation, testing and re-design stages. The activity culminates with a classroom competition and scoring to evaluate how each team's design performed.