Making Stuff
- Teacher Resource
- 2.23.12
- NOVA
Education Collections allow us to curate the most relevant online resources related to specific NOVA programs. Use this collection of resources as a source of inspiration for your classroom: find a video clip to start a discussion with your students, incorporate an activity or demonstration into your class, or get some ideas about how these resources can be strung together with our example lesson plan.
NOVA's "Making Stuff" gives the viewer an inside look at the field of materials science, and investigates the scientific innovations that are developing materials that will shape our future. The media resources below enable educators to engage audiences with this program's subject and encourage a better understanding of new materials that are stronger, smaller, cleaner, and smarter than anything already existing.
Documents
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Making Stuff Activity Guide
Document (PDF)
The Making Stuff Activity Guide contains four materials science activities that can be used in afterschool or out-of-school programs, or other settings.
Video Clips
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Strong as Steel: Testing Toughness
Video Clip | 2:18
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.
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Breaking Point: Testing Tensile Strength
Video Clip | 2:26
This video excerpt from NOVA's "Making Stuff: Stronger" and accompanying demonstration illustrate the toughness and tensile strength of Kevlar® and other everyday materials.
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Magnetic Microbots
Video Clip | 2:49
This video excerpt from NOVA's "Making Stuff: Smaller" and accompanying activity for grades K–8 teach students how materials scientists are building extremely small robots that may be able to travel inside the human body.
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Nanowires and the Ever-Shrinking Microchip
Video Clip | 2:39
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.
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Building a Cleaner Battery
Video Clip | 1:36
This video excerpt from NOVA's "Making Stuff: Cleaner" and accompanying activity guide for grades K–8 introduce students to the design and use of batteries and the rapidly developing science of clean energy and clean materials.
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The Business of Bioplastics
Video Clip | 2:01
This video excerpt from NOVA's "Making Stuff: Cleaner" and accompanying demonstration introduce students to the production and importance of bioplastics, or plastics made from plant or animal products.
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Outsmarting Oobleck
Video Clip | 3:12
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.
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Shape Shifters: Shape-Memory Alloys and Polymers
Video Clip | 2:06
This video excerpt from NOVA's "Making Stuff: Smarter" and accompanying demonstration teach students about revolutionary shape-memory materials.
Multimedia
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What's This Stuff?
Interactive
Learn about the physical, chemical, and mechanical properties of ten mystery materials in this interactive activity adapted from NOVA.
Lesson Plan
Use this lesson plan in your classroom - or as inspiration for creating your own "Making Stuff" lesson plan.
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STEP1
What is Materials Science?
Handout
Use this handout to teach your students about the field of materials science, including what materials scientists do and what kinds of materials already exist. -
STEP2
Watch "Making Stuff: Stronger"
Full-length Video | 53:07
In this full-length video, your students will follow David Pogue as he travels from research labs to a demolition derby to the deck of a U.S. naval aircraft carrier in search of the world's strongest materials. Students will gain an understanding of what defines strength as Pogue takes a look at everything from steel cables to a toucan's beak while experts explain how they are creating the next generation of strong stuff. -
STEP3
Breaking Point: Testing Tensile Strength
Video Clip | 2:26
After your students are introduced to some of the world's strongest materials, engage them in a classroom demonstration that tests and compares the tensile strength and elasticity of Kevlar®, nylon, steel, and cotton thread by using them to lift weighted buckets. Students will learn that materials can be strong in different ways-some have high tensile strength, others are more elastic-and that materials scientists test the strength of materials by stressing them to their breaking point. -
STEP4
Strong as Steel: Testing Toughness
Video Clip | 2:18
Now break your students up into teams or pairs and let them test the toughness of some common materials using a spoon drop strength test. Through this activity, students will gain a deeper understanding of the physical properties of some everyday materials and how materials scientists determine how safe they are, how best to use them, and how to design better ones.
