In this activity, students design an innovative human shelter that is inspired and informed by an animal structure. Each group is assigned an animal class, and they gather information about shelters used by the animals in that class. After researching the topic and brainstorming ideas, students build small prototypes (models) of the structures. Finally, they present their products, explaining what attribute of the animal structure influenced their design.

Date of this Version
Spring 2019

Document Type
Portfolio

Citation
Kenworthy, Celeste and Aurora Kenworthy. "Living World Club." After school club lesson plans. University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2019.

Comments
Copyright 2019 by Celeste Kenworthy under Creative Commons Non-Commercial License. Individuals and organizations may copy, reproduce, distribute, and perform this work and alter or remix this work for non-commercial purposes only.

Abstract
An afterschool club that focuses on building understanding and enjoyment of nature and the environment through interactive and collaborative activities.

Students learn the function of the liver and how biomedical engineers can use liver regeneration to help people. Students test the effects of toxic chemicals on a beef liver by adding hydrogen peroxide to various liver and salt solutions. They observe, record and graph their results.

Students take a hands-on look at the design of bridge piers (columns). First they brainstorm types of loads that might affect a Colorado bridge. Then they determine the maximum possible load for that scenario, and calculate the cross-sectional area of a column designed to support that load. Choosing from clay, foam or marshmallows, they create model columns and test their calculations.

Students are introduced to the structure, function and purpose of locks and dams, which involves an introduction to Pascal's law, water pressure and gravity.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Human respiratory diseases are one of the most common causes of death worldwide. Culture models play an important role in medical research, but the models of human airway are limited. Immortalized airway cells are a potential model, but they do not differentiate well in culture, and thus their physiology may not reflect the physiology of native epithelium. Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) tend to lose epigenetic modifications, which are important for studies of environmentally-induced airway disorders. Primary HAE cells collected from patients are an accurate model, which retains epigenetic marks, but until recently, their biggest limitation was a limited proliferative lifespan in culture. Several conditionally reprogrammed cell (CRC) HAE models have been developed which allow for longer proliferation and differentiation of airway epithelium. Each CRC model is slightly different and has unique methodologies that need to be considered during the experimental design phase..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

Students will compare the daguerreotype of Edgar Allan Poe by an unknown photographer with Poe's writings in an effort to discover the character of this mysterious author.

The Lost in the Amazon curricular unit is a series of minds-on and hands-on engineering activities based on an adventure scenario set in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. Students imagine themselves to be a team of EnviroTech engineers returning to the U.S. from a conference in Brasilia, Brazil. When their plane crashes deep in the Amazon forest, they work in groups to overcome various obstacles in their quest to survive and reach the nearest city as quickly and safely as possible. Motivated by this adventurous theme, students discover, learn and apply the following: 1) classification of plants and insects; 2) general categorizing skills; 3) process skills: problem solving and critical thinking; 4) scientific testing and experimentation; 5) materials properties.

Students explore the theme of love of war through texts on camaraderie among soldiers. They then compose a visual collage depicting their beliefs about the relationship between love and war.

Why does the Moon not always look the same to us? Sometimes it is a big, bright, circle, but, other times, it is only a tiny sliver, if we can see it at all. The different shapes and sizes of the slivers of the Moon are referred to as its phases, and they change periodically over the course of a lunar month, which is twenty-eight days long. The phases are caused by the relative positions of the Earth, Sun, and Moon at different times during the month.

Students work in teams of two to discover the relative positions of the Earth, Sun and Moon that produce the different phases of the Moon. Groups are each given a Styrofoam ball that they attach to a pencil so that it looks like a lollipop. In this acting-out model exercise, this ball on a stick represents the Moon, the students represent the Earth and a hanging lightbulb serves as the Sun. Students move the "Moon" around them to discover the different phases. They fill in the position of the Moon and its corresponding phase in a worksheet.

This diverse collection of lunar maps was automatically generated from USGS Map-a-Planet data together with IAU lunar feature data. Giant zoomable maps of Earth's Moon are featured.

Students are challenged to design and program Arduino-controlled robots that behave like simple versions of the automated guided vehicles engineers design for real-world applications. Using Arduino microcontroller boards, infrared (IR) sensors, servomotors, attachable wheels and plastic containers (for the robot frame), they make "Lunch-Bots." Teams program the robots to meet the project constraints—to follow a line of reflective tape, make turns and stop at a designated spot to deliver a package, such as a sandwich or pizza slice. They read and interpret analog voltages from IR sensors, compare how infrared reflects differently off different materials, and write Arduino programs that use IR sensor inputs to control the servomotors. Through the process, students experience the entire engineering design process. Pre/post-quizzes and coding help documents are provided.

Students learn about the unique challenges astronauts face while eating in outer space. They explore different food choices and food packaging. Students learn about the engineering design process, and then, as NASA engineering teams, they design and build original model devices to help astronauts eat in a microgravity environment --- their own creative devices for food storage and meal preparation.

The mission of the MIT-Haiti Initiative is to promote active learning in Kreyòl so that Haitians can have universal access to quality education in the language that most of them speak at home. 
Platfòm MIT-Ayiti, launched in 2019, offers a wealth of freely accessible educational resources in Kreyòl, including downloadable lesson plans and picture books categorized by topic, alongside official curricula from Haiti's Ministry of National Education. The target audience for these resources includes students at all levels from pre-kindergarten through high school, and we offer materials in all disciplines. We also host and invite contributions from all educators who are willing to submit their own materials in Kreyòl. We work with these contributions, in konbit (collaborative) mode, to improve these submissions before publication. Men anpil, chay pa lou! (That is, many hands make light work!)
The Initiative’s original website, launched in 2010, includes software tools for math, physics, genetics, and biochemistry education, as well as a preliminary (work-in-progress) glossary of Kreyòl equivalents for English words commonly used in the STEM disciplines.

At the MIT Haystack Observatory, researchers use several basic science concepts every day. Electromagnetic waves, optics, and molecular chemistry are just a few of the core topics that can be incorporated into the high school science curriculum by exploring the atmosphere and the universe with lessons focused around the research specialties at Haystack.
The original material presented here was developed by teachers, with the assistance of the staff at Haystack. All lesson plans have been successfully used in high school classrooms. These lessons have been prepared with specific attention to the goals and objectives of current science curricula. The object is to create lessons that will enhance your class, not require you to add substantial material.
The development of these educational materials at the Haystack Observatory was funded by the National Science Foundation under the Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) program.

This template supports STEM teachers and librarians in working collaboratively to create lessons that build science practice and STEM inquiry skills in alignment with state and national science standards, and that address the Common Core literacy shifts around close reading and building textual evidence.

MN STEM Teacher Center resources developed to help teachers translate the Minnesota state standards into classroom practice and assist in student achievement of those standards.

Students are given an engineering challenge: A nearby hospital has just installed a new magnetic resonance imaging facility that has the capacity to make 3D images of the brain and other body parts by exposing patients to a strong magnetic field. The hospital wishes for its entire staff to have a clear understanding of the risks involved in working near a strong magnetic field and a basic understanding of why those risks occur. Your task is to develop a presentation or pamphlet explaining the risks, the physics behind those risks, and the safety precautions to be taken by all staff members. This 10-lesson/4-activity unit was designed to provide hands-on activities to teach end-of-year electricity and magnetism topics to a first-year accelerated or AP physics class. Students learn about and then apply the following science concepts to solve the challenge: magnetic force, magnetic moments and torque, the Biot-Savart law, Ampere's law and Faraday's law. This module is built around the Legacy Cycle, a format that incorporates findings from educational research on how people best learn.

These are STEM lessons and activities focused on stormwater management, watershed education, and water quality.