Gears, trusses and trade-offs: High school science
Engineering: trade-offs, efficiency and mechanical advantage. A free High school lesson plan with a hook, practice that links to free activities, and an exit ticket. Copy it and make it yours.
Lesson plan
Goal
- Students work toward: engineering: trade-offs, efficiency and mechanical advantage.
Hook (5 min)
- Ask the class: Why can't one design be the lightest, strongest and cheapest?
- Take two or three answers and write them where everyone can see them.
Teach (15 min)
- Say the big idea in one plain sentence: gears, trusses and trade-offs.
- Show one example, then one that is not an example, and ask how the two differ.
- Have students tell a partner or a small group the idea in their own words.
Practise (20 min)
- Choose one for the whole class or let groups pick:
- Learn: Designing Under Constraints (https://peabody.kids/world/build/build-designing-under-constraints)
- Learn: Bridges and Trusses (https://peabody.kids/world/build/build-bridges-and-trusses)
- Learn: Gears and Gear Ratios (https://peabody.kids/world/build/build-gears-and-gear-ratios)
- Learn: Where energy goes (https://peabody.kids/world/build/build-efficiency-energy)
- Make: A high school fair project (https://peabody.kids/science-fair/grade/high-school)
Exit ticket (5 min)
- On a slip or aloud: one thing I learned about gears, trusses and trade-offs, and one question I still have.
- Sort the slips into: got it, nearly, not yet. Start tomorrow with the last pile.
Written by Peabody from its own skill pages. Free, no ads, no sign-in. Children can practise this on Peabody. More from teachers: teacher-shared resources.