Mathematics & Sciences

STEM Education

CIMI Program Student Activities

Considering professional development for your math faculty on integrating industry contextual lessons into your curriculum? Email Julia Smith at  Email Julia Smith  for more information.

To receive Word documents for any student activity sheet, email  Email Julia Smith for student activity documents.

Functions

Students develop an understanding of how a photogrammetric engineer uses measurements from a photograph to create a 3D model of an object on the ground.

Students look at raw and graphed data from a beverage system cleaning to determine if the water consumption is efficient as defined by industry standards.

Students design an additional heat exchanger to add to an existing one at North Carolina State University's Dairy Plant to enable an increase in production of dairy products. Students will then be asked to finish an Excel template to answer various "what if" questions that could occur on the job.

Students determine the appropriate placement of a storm drain system and the appropriate design speed on two different stretches of highway involving a sag and a crest curve.

Students measure a staircase in their school building to determine if they are "up to today's building codes." Students then design a staircase for new construction.

Students use algebra to determine the thickness of steel plates that need to be fabricated in order to ensure construction is structurally sound and economically efficient.

Students design a flight plan and the number of images needed to collect data from a landslide in western North Carolina that wiped out a mile of roadway.

Is a stormwater management system needed? CLH Design specializes in school site development and is contracted to develop stormwater management plans for the construction of South Lakes Elementary School.

Students determine the number of inlets needed throughout the project site of the proposed four-lane highway to ensure a safe 8-foot spread for the width of discharge.

Students compare, analyze and interpret steel fabrication and erection data in verbal, tabular, graphical and algebraic forms.

Students examine how environmental engineers use matrices and regression modeling to manage the cost of waste disposal at their manufacturing facility. Students will also look at forecasts for future waste production to examine expenditures associated with disposal, as well as impact on environmental certifications.

Students determine the placement of an active vehicle barrier on Kirtland Military Base.

Students act as civil engineers for SEPI, a division of TranSystems, which plans, designs and oversees construction to enhance transportation networks, and work to determine the level of service on a stretch of highway in Raleigh. Students also will predict future population and the level of service of the roadway based on the predicted population.

Geometry

Students use algebra and geometry to determine the outside air requirements and heating loads required for building design.

Students explore how adhering to building codes while keeping construction costs within a client's budget impacts the overall building process. Students will need to find the area of irregular shapes, apply a formula to determine anticipated speed, static pressure and power required for the adjusted airflow of a fan system, and use the Pythagorean theorem.

Students use basic algebra to determine the pulley diameters required to obtain a specific speed of shaft rotation, and they use geometry to determine the correct size of a clean-in-place tank.

Students interpret and apply building codes to determine the number of exits needed for a commercial space and the minimum distance between exits. Students will need to convert units, find the area of irregular shapes, apply a formula to determine occupant load and use the Pythagorean theorem.

Students work on an engineering project to consider the height of a water storage tank and its relationship to water pressure, the weight of the tank and the capacity of the ground beneath it to support the structure.

Students determine if an existing drainage system is sufficient to handle the extra rainwater runoff from a 5-acre construction site to prevent an adjacent road from flooding. After determining the existing system is not big enough and by how much is it short, students determine an engineered ditch that will handle the excess water runoff from the construction site.

Tree coverage on a site is often defined as the total basal area of the trees on that site. This basal figure is related to the size and number of trees. Students will use gathered measurement data to classify a site as understocked, overstocked or fully stocked with timber based on industry standards.

Matrices

Students use matrices to determine if they have the supplies required to build a hydra rack.

Modeling

Students use mathematical modeling to determine the size of the pump needed to move wastewater to a treatment facility.

Statistics

Students use statistics to determine change over time of an adhesive, investigate potential causes and develop a potential solution.

Students use mathematical modeling to determine the ideal temperature for virus growth and vaccine production, and they also use statistics to compare the efficacy of two drugs.

Students use the mean and standard deviation to determine the best method of delivery of a drug into the human body.

Students use 1-Proportion Z-test to determine which strains are significantly different from the control. They will then calculate which of the statically significant virus strains produce the most virus cells.

Students learn how to create a Pareto chart to analyze why a system isn’t working and apply the 80/20 rule to make recommendations for improving processes.

Trigonometry

Students act as a developer and make sure they are maximizing the number of apartments provided while complying with the city's municipal code and the protected areas nearby.

Students use right triangle trigonometry along with the Law of Sines and Law of Cosines to determine the placement of solar panels on a flat roof that will yield the maximum energy output.

Students will locate the fourth corner monument to confirm the property lines surrounding a home so that the homeowners know where to build a fence. Students then determine if there is any overlap between properties that occurred during the creation of the neighborhood.

Students will use geometry to determine the volume of large, irregular-shaped objects.

Students examine how curves in roads are designed and how speed limits are set based on the amount of curvature and banking that exists in the design. Students will also look at redesigning an existing road for safe travel at a high speed.

Students act as builders, specifically choosing the roof pitch for a new "barndominium" to allow for a possible second floor in the future and calculating materials needed.