Students will launch the cold-cup engineering project by gathering preliminary temperature evidence from everyday containers, learning to interpret temperature change, and completing a readiness map that connects project questions, safety expectations, and future design milestones.

Students will define the insulated-cup engineering problem by testing cup systems, gathering quantitative evidence about temperature and mass changes, and developing particle-and-system models of evaporation, condensation, and open and closed systems. Teams will use their findings, stakeholder needs, and existing cup features to produce an evidence-based design brief with measurable criteria, constraints, and controlled testing conditions.

Students will investigate how light absorption and particle collisions transfer energy into a closed cup system, analyze quantitative temperature evidence, and revise particle-and-system models. They will also apply these models to stored potential energy, a sealed chemical cooling device, water cycling, and ecosystem energy flow before completing a model-and-argument milestone.

Students will analyze how cup features reduce light absorption and particle collisions, develop a consensus energy-transfer model, generate multiple insulated-cup concepts, and use peer critique and a weighted decision matrix to select a shared design before construction.

Students will finalize the Cup Design 1 specifications, construct a prototype with at least three evidence-based insulation features, and conduct a controlled cold-water test. Teams will maintain shared quantitative records, compare performance with predictions and design criteria, and complete an evidence packet that receives two rounds of peer review before progression to redesign.

Students will use quantitative test evidence and peer critique to redesign, construct, and retest an insulated cup before developing a generalized energy-transfer model. They will complete an individual disaster-blanket transfer assessment, investigate community priorities for cup selection, and prepare evidence-based action products and engineering stories for the Cold Cup Expo.

Students will rehearse, present, and defend their insulated-cup engineering work at a Cold Cup Expo, then submit portfolios that use evidence to answer the Essential Question and supporting questions.