Nanowires and the Ever-Shrinking Microchip

This video excerpt from NOVA’s "Making Stuff: Smaller" and accompanying demonstration introduce students to small, thin wires, called nanowires, that may help make computers and electronics even smaller in the future.

Accessibility features: Caption, Transcript

Observe, Make, Measure

There are many ways to get information in the world. This collection of still images features tools that help us observe, make, and measure things.

Off the Grid

This interactive activity produced for Teachers' Domain presents users with three hypothetical scenarios in which they are challenged to design a wind power system that will meet their electrical needs.

Outsmarting Oobleck

This video excerpt from NOVA’s "Making Stuff: Smarter" and accompanying activity for grades K–8 help students investigate some “smart” materials that respond to forces or changes in their environment in unusual ways.

Accessibility features: Caption, Transcript

Physics of Arches

In this interactive activity from NOVA, try your hand at constructing a stone arch and learn about the physics that affect the arch.

Planning Your Future Career in Advanced Technology

In this media-rich, self-paced lesson, students explore the industries that produce and rely on advanced technology and assess how their goals and interests may make them well suited for a career in this cutting-edge sector.

Product Life Cycle

In this media-rich lesson featuring LOOP SCOOPS videos, students think about where materials in everyday products come from, and learn that knowing about product life cycles can help us make decisions that reduce waste and pollution.

Robo Arm Challenge

In this video from Design Squad Nation, kids design and build controllable mechanical arms and use them to lift objects and play games. They also learn how NASA uses robotic arms on many of its missions.

Accessibility features: Caption

Shape Shifters: Shape-Memory Alloys and Polymers

This video excerpt from NOVA’s "Making Stuff: Smarter" and accompanying demonstration teach students about revolutionary shape-memory materials.

Accessibility features: Caption, Transcript

Sharing Water Between Dams

In this video segment from PEEP and the Big Wide World, children figure out how to control the flow of water so it supplies two dams.

Accessibility features: Caption

The Skyscraper Challenge

In this interactive activity from the Building Big Web site, investigate hypothetical structural emergencies and figure out how to repair them.

Solar City: The Future of Nanosolar

In this video from QUEST produced by KQED, learn how a company, hoping to leave today's silicon solar cells behind, is creating paper-thin solar panels to harness nanotechnology.

Spy Technology

In this video segment from IdahoPTV's D4K meet Kevin Young, an Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory engineer, who designs robots, infrared cameras and hazmat cameras as he describes their many uses. These imaginative creations are valuable for the military, counter terrorism and law enforcement.

Accessibility features: Caption, Transcript

Teens for Safe Cosmetics

In this video adapted from Earth Island Institute's New Leaders Initiative, meet a high school student who worked to enact a state law to make cosmetics safer, after she learned they contained toxic chemicals linked to cancer.

Accessibility features: Caption

Telescope Girl

In this video segment from ZOOM, 12-year-old Katy gives people in her neighborhood a glimpse of the moon through a 10-inch reflecting telescope she built herself.

Accessibility features: Caption

Strong as Steel: Testing Toughness

This video excerpt from NOVA’s "Making Stuff: Stronger" and accompanying activity for grades K–8 help students investigate the strength and toughness of steel and other everyday materials.

Accessibility features: Caption, Transcript

Testing Insulators: Ice Cube in a Box

Watch the ZOOM cast discover which insulator -- newspaper or aluminum foil -- is better at keeping an ice cube frozen longer.

Accessibility features: Caption

Triangles: Designing a Newspaper Chair

Watch the ZOOM cast build a chair out of newspaper by making good use of the strength of triangles.

Accessibility features: Caption

The Tunnel Challenge

This interactive activity, from the Building Big Web site, explores tunneling and the tools and methods used to do the job.

Turning Electricity and Magnetism into Mechanical Work with a Simple Motor (MS)

Students will explore what happens at the atomic level when electricity and magnetism interact to create a force. They will watch a video about electrons in motion, build a simple motor, and observe and predict ways to manipulate its operation.