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Resources for Grades 6-8:

Designing a Vehicle for the Year 2020

Module Description Students learn about natural resources, human effect on the environment and engineering design through this brief module on vehicle transportation. They study how vehicles of today are designed and how vehicles could be improved for the future. Using real world scientific data and science reasoning skills, they investigate both existing and emerging energy sources and designs for vehicles. They take a realistic look at existing energy and fuel infrastructure and consider how that infrastructure will change, or need to change, by 2020. Finally, they apply this knowledge to realistically design their own "vehicles of the future" and to create multimedia presentations of their ideas for classmates.
Module Project Students consider how fuel-efficient and environmentally friendly technologies will impact the kinds of vehicles available in the year 2020. They use videos, multimedia presentations, or pamphlets to design and advertise their "cars of the future."
Objectives
  • Students will work in teams to research and investigate vehicles using interactive online materials, videos, and hands-on experiments.
  • Students will demonstrate their understanding of vehicle design, energy, and alternative fuels by brainstorming improvements for a vehicle.
  • Students will work collaboratively to create an informative and engaging advertisement for a vehicle.

Red Toolbox and Tires

Lesson Plans

1: How Green Is Your Vehicle? Before students can investigate ways to improve a vehicle for the year 2020, they must determine the impact of vehicles on the environment today. In this lesson, students select a vehicle to investigate and conduct research to discover that vehicle's past and current impact on the environment.

2: What's the Deal with Oil? Students conduct research to discover the specific kinds of alternative energy sources that will likely be available in 2020. They then decide which of these alternative sources will be most efficient to use in their "cars of the future."

3: What's the Deal with Emissions? Students continue to investigate alternative energy sources by focusing on the emissions released into the environment. They apply what they learn to their designs in order to minimize the negative impact of their vehicles on the environment.

4: A Weighty Decision Students conduct an experiment involving balloon-powered cars in order to determine how different materials affect a vehicle's weight. They then make connections between vehicle weight, fuel efficiency, and eco-friendliness.

5: Restructuring Infrastructure Students investigate the ways that people produce, transport, and store energy in order to identify how these structures and processes must change before their "cars of the future" can become a reality.

6: A Problem of Design Students investigate a variety of additional technologies, such as hybrid gas-electric cars and hydrogen fuel, which will likely impact vehicle design in the year 2020.

7: Can You Create a Better Vehicle? After reviewing the main concepts developed in the first six lessons of this module, students work together to design and advertise their "cars of the future."

Supplemental Lesson Plans

See below for additional STEM-related exercises and lessons to extend topics for students.

The Ultimate Roller Coaster Contest Explore mechanical energy, potential energy, and kinetic energy, and predict the conditions under which a person will feel lighter or heavier in a moving vehicle.

A Metric World Convert quantities from the English system to the metric system and think about the many ways in which measuring quantities is a part of daily life.

Measure for Measure: Lengths and Heights Discuss the importance of accurate measurements.

Force Counterforce Investigate the force of gravity, and air resistance and friction acting as counterforces to gravity.

Forces and Motion Discover how air resistance, or air friction, can slow down the acceleration of a falling object and learn about terminal speed.

Inventor's Workshop Learn about the six simple machines: the inclined plane, the lever and fulcrum, the wedge, the screw, the wheel and axle, and the pulley.

Student Resources

Keep your class engaged in this module's topics with tools set aside just for them.

Students can fuel up on even more action with topic-related videos, interactives, animations, and puzzles in the Middle School section.

Go!