Grade 5 Engineering & Physics

32 of 36 lessons are MUST COVER. They are tested on the unit tests and exams, or are skills the SAT/ACT relies on. OPTIONAL lessons are enrichment. Do them if time allows. The course is complete when the MUST COVER lessons are done.

Unit 1: Forces, Motion and the Design Process

• MUST COVER 1.1 The Engineering Design Process: Leonardo’s Notebooks · unit test
• MUST COVER 1.2 Newton’s Three Laws and a Balloon Rocket · unit test
• MUST COVER 1.3 Archimedes and the Pulley: Mechanical Advantage · unit test
• MUST COVER 1.4 Gears in Clocks and Bicycles · unit test

Unit 2: Bridges

• MUST COVER 2.1 Forces in Structures: The Forth Bridge · unit test
• MUST COVER 2.2 Truss Bridges and a Craft-Stick Load Test · unit test
• MUST COVER 2.3 The Brooklyn Bridge: The Roeblings, Caissons and Steel Wire · unit test
• MUST COVER 2.4 Tacoma Narrows: Resonance and Learning from Failure · unit test

Unit 3: Tall Buildings

• MUST COVER 3.1 Loads and Foundations: The Washington Monument · unit test
• MUST COVER 3.2 From Pyramids to Gothic Cathedrals: Arches, Vaults and Buttresses · unit test
• MUST COVER 3.3 The Steel Frame and Otis’s Safety Elevator · unit test
• MUST COVER 3.4 The Empire State Building: Building for Wind and Earthquakes · unit test

Unit 4: Electricity and Electronics

• MUST COVER 4.1 Volta, Ohm and the Circuit: Voltage, Current and Resistance · unit test
• MUST COVER 4.2 Oersted, Faraday and a Homemade Motor · unit test
• MUST COVER 4.3 Samuel Morse and the Telegraph · unit test
• MUST COVER 4.4 Switches, LEDs and Resistors: From Edison’s Lamp to the LED · unit test

Unit 5: Public Utilities

• MUST COVER 5.1 Clean Water: From Roman Aqueducts to the Treatment Plant · unit test
• MUST COVER 5.2 Sewers and Wastewater: Bazalgette and the Great Stink · unit test
• MUST COVER 5.3 Making Electricity: Faraday, Edison, Tesla and Niagara Falls · unit test
• MUST COVER 5.4 Dams, the Grid and the Lineworker · unit test

Unit 6: Boats and Ships

• MUST COVER 6.1 Archimedes’ Principle Measured · unit test
• MUST COVER 6.2 Stability and the Warship Vasa · unit test
• MUST COVER 6.3 From Sail to Steam: Fulton and the Screw Propeller · unit test
• MUST COVER 6.4 The Titanic: Watertight Compartments and What Changed · unit test

Unit 7: Flight

• MUST COVER 7.1 The Dreamers: Montgolfier Balloons, Cayley and Lilienthal · unit test
• MUST COVER 7.2 The Wright Brothers’ Method: Kites, Wind Tunnel and Data · unit test
• MUST COVER 7.3 The Four Forces and the Airfoil: A Glider Test · unit test
• MUST COVER 7.4 Propellers, Jets, Rockets and Drones · unit test

Unit 8: Robots and Invention

• MUST COVER 8.1 Sense, Think, Act: From Unimate to the Mars Rovers · unit test
• MUST COVER 8.2 Algorithms and Coding: Loops and Decisions in Scratch or MakeCode · unit test
• MUST COVER 8.3 Sensors and Feedback: Thermostats and Line Followers · unit test
• MUST COVER 8.4 Capstone Design Challenge and the Family Engineering Fair · unit test

Unit 9: Toy Lab: The Physics of Play OPTIONAL unit

• OPTIONAL 9.1 The Frisbee: A Spinning Wing
• OPTIONAL 9.2 The LEGO Brick: Precision, Tolerance and Clutch Power
• OPTIONAL 9.3 The Rubik’s Cube: A Hidden Mechanism
• OPTIONAL 9.4 Toy Teardown: How a Toy Is Engineered

From the course’s own 36-week pacing guide, with catch-up and review weeks added to fill a 36-week (180-day) year.

Grading: Builds (effort, fair testing and the improve round) 40%, Engineer’s notebook (predictions, data tables, sketches, conclusions) 20%, Unit reviews 15%, Portfolio builds 25%. Scale: A 90–100, B 80–89, C 70–79, D 60–69. Below 60: redo the build or review with help.