Technology and Engineering

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NOVA

RESOURCE	GRADE LEVEL	MEDIA TYPE
Aerodynamics: What Causes Lift? How does an airplane stay aloft when upside down? This media-rich essay from the NOVA Web site offers an explanation based on Newton's third law of motion.	6-12	Interactive
Air Bag Design Using automobile crash test footage, this video segment adapted from NOVA shows some of the challenges in designing the air bag.	3-12	Video
Airplanes: Designing for Stealth Explore this NOVA interactive activity to see how engineers have modified a military plane's sound, shape, and heat emissions to minimize detection.	6-12	Interactive
Anatomy of a Firework There's more to a fireworks display than meets the eye. This interactive activity from the NOVA Web site looks at the technology behind each burst of light.	6-12	Interactive
Antarctica: A Challenging Work Day What happens when the ground under your feet is ice and it's moving? This video segment adapted from NOVA features some of the dangers faced by scientists conducting research in Antarctica.	3-12	Video
Atmospheric Pressure Did you know that air has weight? This illustrated essay from the NOVA Web site explores conditions that affect air density and atmospheric pressure.	6-12	Document
Avalanche Town The impact of natural disasters is made vivid in this video segment adapted from NOVA. A small town in Iceland, prepared for recurrent avalanches, is devastated when one takes a new and damaging path.	6-12	Video
The Beginnings of the Telescope This animated essay from the NOVA Web site examines the design of Galileo's refracting telescope and Sir Isaac Newton's reflecting telescope.	6-12	Document
Blood Vessels Help Tumors Grow In this video segment, adapted from NOVA, Dr. Judah Folkman uses the scientific method to discover how cancer cells induce the formation of new blood vessels, which in turn nourish those cancer cells.	6-12	Video
Brain Trauma Find out how serious head concussions can be in this video segment adapted from NOVA scienceNOW.	6-12	Video
Build a Bridge Survey potential bridge sites, research bridge design, and select the right bridge for the right location in this interactive activity from the NOVA Web site.	6-12	Interactive
Carbon-Fiber Car of the Future In this video segment adapted from NOVA, find out how cars made of a material stronger than steel and half the weight can help combat climate change.	6-12	Video
Centripetal Force: Pulling Cs and Gs In this interactive activity from NOVA, discover how centripetal force can affect you when riding in a car or flying at high speeds in a fighter jet.	3-8	Interactive
Construct an Aqueduct Think like an engineer and build an aqueduct in this interactive activity from the NOVA Web site.	3-12	Interactive
Demolition Woman Find out how controlled explosions are used to demolish multi-story buildings in this interview from the NOVA Web site.	6-12	Document
Discovering Air Our understanding about the air we breathe has changed dramatically through time. This illustrated timeline from the NOVA Web site tracks the changing thought on air and the creation of the Periodic Table of the Elements.	6-12	Document
Energy Transfer in a Trebuchet On NOVA, a team of carpenters, timber framers, engineers, and historians recreate a medieval throwing machine called a trebuchet. This adapted video segment explores how understanding energy transfer informs their design.	6-12	Video
Fire Safety in High Rises This video segment adapted from NOVA explains how the sprinkler revolutionized fire safety and also features developments in fire-safety design for high-rise buildings.	6-12	Video
Fireworks! Lifting Charge In this video segment adapted from NOVA, learn how pyrotechnicians use common compounds to blast fireworks into the sky and give them shape.	6-12	Video
Floating and Sinking: Hot Air Balloons Why do hot air balloons float? This resource from the NOVA Web site offers a series of interactive activities that illustrates the physics of hot air balloons.	6-12	Interactive
Flood: Farming and Erosion In this video segment adapted from NOVA, scientists investigate how farming along the Mississippi River impacts floods and what can be done about it.	3-12	Video
Franklin Chang-Díaz: Rocket Scientist This video segment adapted from NOVA scienceNOW profiles Franklin Chang-Díaz, a scientist who is working on plasma-powered rockets and was NASA's first Latin American astronaut.	6-12	Video
Fuel Cells In this video segment adapted from NOVA scienceNOW, hydrogen fuel cell cars promise pollution-free driving, but will we see them anytime soon?	6-12	Video
Galileo's Telescope The invention of the telescope helped change our understanding of the universe. This video segment adapted from NOVA looks at Galileo's contribution to this technology.	6-12	Video
Galileo: Timeline of His Life This illustrated timeline from the NOVA Web site turns back the clock to the late 1500's to relive the dramatic life of one of the world's most renowned scientists.	6-12	Document
Getting Airborne and Wing Design What makes an airplane fly? Discover the connection between Newton's third law of motion and flight in this interactive activity from the NOVA Web site.	6-12	Interactive
Global Warming: Beyond Fossil Fuels Martin Hoffert, professor of physics at New York University, discusses global warming and alternative energies in this interview from the NOVA/FRONTLINE Web site.	6-12	Document
Global Warming: The Hydrogen Car Is the hydrogen car the answer to global warming? This video segment adapted from NOVA/FRONTLINE looks at the pros and cons of this developing technology.	3-12	Video
Grass Bridge In this video segment adapted from NOVA, watch residents of the Peruvian Andes build a suspension bridge made entirely of grass.	3-12	Video
A Hole in the Sky This video segment adapted from Interactive NOVA profiles two scientists who were surprised in 1984 to discover a hole in our atmosphere's ozone layer as big as the United States.	6-12	Video
How Do You Get to the Moon? This video, adapted from NOVA, showcases the competing engineering plans designed for landing a person on the Moon for the first time.	6-12	Video
Hurricanes: New Orleans Under Threat This video segment adapted from NOVA scienceNOW exposes how decades of development and geography combined to make the potential damage from a hurricane uniquely devastating in New Orleans, Louisiana.	6-12	Video
The Leaning Tower: Where It Stands Today Will the Leaning Tower of Pisa give way to gravity? In this interview from the NOVA Web site, engineer John Burland relates the difficult job of saving the tower.	6-12	Document
Levers: Raising the Moai on Easter Island In this video segment adapted from NOVA, a team of archaeologists and engineers explores different uses of the lever by recreating the engineering feats of the ancient Easter Island peoples.	3-12	Video
Lift and Drag In this interactive activity from NOVA, learn about the aerodynamic forces of lift and drag and how critical they are to the operation of all sorts of devices.	6-12	Interactive
Luis von Ahn: Computer Scientist This video segment adapted from NOVA scienceNOW profiles Luis von Ahn, the computer scientist and award-winning college professor behind innovations to prevent e-mail spam and digitize rare books.	6-12	Video
Mars Dead or Alive: A Hostile Environment This NOVA video segment describes the challenges presented by the frozen desert environment of Mars to NASA engineers designing two robots that will journey millions of miles to the red planet.	6-12	Video
Name That Shell The way a firework shell is designed and assembled determines the shape and color of a firework display. Choose a video clip and try to identify each firework variety in this interactive activity from the NOVA Web site.	6-12	Interactive
A Nanotube Space Elevator In this video adapted from NOVA scienceNOW, find out about the discovery of a new building material, the carbon nanotube, whose physical properties could theoretically enable the creation of a 22,000-mile elevator to space.	6-12	Video
Newton's Third Law of Motion: Astronauts in Outer Space In this video segment adapted from NOVA, NASA learns hard lessons from the first American attempt to do work while "walking" in space. The video also explores Newton's third law of motion.	3-12	Video
Next-Generation Space Suits In this video segment adapted from NOVA scienceNOW, MIT engineer Dava Newman is working to replace today's bulky, inflated space suits with a radical, sleek design that may one day allow astronauts to walk easily on Mars.	9-12	Video
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.	7-12	Interactive
Pilotless Flight: Timeline of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Explore this NOVA interactive timeline and discover the many technological innovations in the history of unmanned flight, from hot-air balloons to miniature flying robots.	6-12	Interactive
Pyrotechnically Speaking Meet chemistry professor Dr. John Conkling in this interview from the NOVA Web site and learn why fireworks are his passion.	6-12	Document
Raising an Obelisk: An Engineering Puzzle This video segment adapted from NOVA follows two teams as they each test a different engineering design in an effort to explain how ancient Egyptians raised a giant stone obelisk.	3-12	Video
Revealing the Origins of Life Learn how scientists explore the chemistry behind the first life on Earth and discover one way it may have arisen from simple chemicals and natural pathways, in this video segment adapted from NOVA scienceNOW.	9-12	Video
Robofly Featuring slow-motion footage of insects in flight, this video adapted from NOVA explores the engineering challenge of designing a robotic aerial vehicle that flies like a bug.	6-12	Video
Robot Race In this video segment adapted from NOVA, cars drive themselves. Teams of designers using different technologies compete for a two-million-dollar prize to see which unmanned vehicle will make it to the finish line first.	3-12	Video
The Sequencing Race Begins This video segment from NOVA: "Cracking the Code of Life" looks at one of the key players in the race to decode the human genome.	9-12	Video
Smart Bridges In this video segment adapted from NOVA scienceNOW, learn about engineering innovations that could help detect a bridge's structural weaknesses before they become dangerous.	6-12	Video
Solar Paint Your Roof In this video segment adapted from NOVA, see how nanotechnology might be used to create a new, cheaper way to produce solar electricity for the home.	6-12	Video
To Survive at High Velocity This video segment adapted from NOVA looks at speed, velocity, and centripetal force on the racetrack.	6-12	Video
Wearable Robots Discover how wearable robots can help firefighters and paraplegics in this video adapted from NOVA scienceNOW.	5-12	Video
Who Owns the Genome? This video segment from NOVA: "Cracking the Code of Life" examines the social and ethical implications of genome research.	9-12	Video