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From Practical Action and the Royal Academy of Engineering, this short starter activity helps students to think about their own values and those of their peers in relation to the sustainability of engineering. The activity encourages an awareness of the impact of engineering on the environment and sustainability....

This problem features a coil of tinplate being stored on a mandrel. In the first problem, students are presented with the diameter of the mandrel, the height from the floor, the width of the coil and the density of the steel. The problem is to calculate the maximum coil weight. A worked solution is included with...

From Practical Action, this resource is an eco-tool used to compare the sustainability of two products or design ideas.

Drinks cans are made by stamping out circular discs from a sheet of tin. Given the dimensions of the sheet of tin and the diameter of the circle stamped out, students are required to calculate the wastage and to investigate whether there is a more efficient method. The problem requires students to be able to...

The Eco-design web is a useful tool to help students’ analyse an existing product or design. It can also be used to indicate areas of the product that can be redesigned to improve its environmental sustainability.

This challenge, from Practical Action, requires students to design and build a model structure that will enable farmers to grow crops even in an area that may become flooded. A floating garden, built on a base of aquatic weeds, is a low cost and sustainable way of allowing people to grow vegetables. The resource...

From Practical Action, this resource encourages students to look at how design specifications are balanced when developing new products.

This resource from Practical Action includes a presentation and worksheets which give Key Stage Three and Four students opportunities to understand more about the impact of existing and new products on people and the environment. The presentation is packed with useful activities to reinforce students' learning. The...

Produced by Practical Action, these materials help students to consider the impacts of a product through its whole life cycle. A presentation describes the concept of lifecycle analysis (LCA) and gives some examples. Students are then challenged to consider the life cycle of familiar products, from raw materials,...

This activity booklet uses the real life context of air traffic control using radar signals to identify the position of an aeroplane that students act out. It provides them with an opportunity to use their knowledge of waves and speed = distance / time to calibrate and calculate the distance a plane is from the...

The reduction mill reduces the thickness of a strip of steel using a series of rollers, each roller making the steel slightly thinner. The percentage reduction is constant on each pair of rollers. The mathematics used to calculate the actual reduction is similar to that used when calculating compound interest....

Tin cans come in a variety of shapes and sizes. In this activity students consider the net of a tin can, the formula for the total surface area and the formula for the volume of the can. The first problem requires students to express the total surface area as a function of r by eliminating h. The second problem...

Due to problems in the manufacture of tinplate coils, the edge of the strip can be slightly longer than the centre. This causes a 'wave' on the wall of the coil but can be rectified by differentially stretching the strip to make the edges flat. Students are required to apply Pythagoras' theorem to find the radius...

In this activity, students explore the requirements of aerodynamic design through testing simple shapes in a wind tunnel and explain the link between the test results from a wind tunnel and air resistance. The activity focuses on students acquiring an understanding of...