he cost of healthcare is one of the largest personal expenditures worldwide, with residents of the United States spending upwards of $10,000 each year. A significant portion of healthcare costs in the United States and many other countries comes from paying for prescription medications. This unit is designed to give 9-12th grade chemistry, pharmacology, or biology students an introduction to prescription drug costs and what scientific measures can be taken to lower costs. Topics necessary for this unit include the relationship between structure and function, pH, activation energy, the relationship between temperature and reaction rate, catalysts, inhibitors, among additional concepts. This unit functions as an end-of-year project incorporating all of the topics listed above and challenges students to conduct research, design their own strategy to lower drug costs, and prove their viability and cost-saving potential through calculation. Individually or in pairs students must pick a strategy or technology, spend a day or more researching it, two days writing a research paper on it, one day preparing a class presentation, and one day for presentations. Student’s ability to effectively prove the viability of their strategies/technologies as well as estimate the cost savings to consumers will be weighted heavily.

The subject matter in this unit will explore The American Disabilities Act, its impact on tourism, hospitality with empathetically designed applied biotechnological models. The primary objective of this unit is to get students to apply their foundational knowledge of allied health professions to a specified disability.

The curriculum unit was designed and formatted with the intention to give the student a basic understanding of disabilities and to design a rapid prototype with empathy.

Students will apply their scientific knowledge to the real-world and overarching question: “How do disabled people navigate activities of daily living and the world of travel with ease?” This curriculum unit will employ Design Thinking methodology towards the development of novel medical devices that can make daily life activities and traveling safer, convenient and more enjoyable.

The teaching strategies are varied, forward thinking, and promote brainstorming sessions as a means of student engagement. Strategies used will encourage students to think independently and work collaboratively. The curriculum unit framework includes a series of steps, including a complete understanding of the American Disabilities Act, an Everfi-Endeavor STEM careers exploration course that offers a tailored approach to introduce topics relating to Science, Technology, Engineering, Math and Medical Careers, and concludes with a service learning project.

Students learn how forces are used in the creation of art. They come to understand that it is not just bridge and airplane designers who are concerned about how forces interact with objects, but artists as well. As "paper engineers," students create their own mobiles and pop-up books, and identify and use the forces (air currents, gravity, hand movement) acting upon them.

The purpose of this learning video is to show students how to think more freely about math and science problems. Sometimes getting an approximate answer in a much shorter period of time is well worth the time saved. This video explores techniques for making quick, back-of-the-envelope approximations that are not only surprisingly accurate, but are also illuminating for building intuition in understanding science. This video touches upon 10th-grade level Algebra I and first-year high school physics, but the concepts covered (velocity, distance, mass, etc) are basic enough that science-oriented younger students would understand. If desired, teachers may bring in pendula of various lengths, weights to hang, and a stopwatch to measure period. Examples of in- class exercises for between the video segments include: asking students to estimate 29 x 31 without a calculator or paper and pencil; and asking students how close they can get to a black hole without getting sucked in.

Survey potential bridge sites, research bridge design, and select the right bridge for the right location in this interactive activity from the NOVA Web site. ***Access to Teacher's Domain content now requires free login to PBS Learning Media.

This activity allows the student to explore problem solving strategies while working with a partner. This activity (building a paper bridge), requires students to question word definition and the application of those definitions. Through problem solving strategies, students discover the need for applying math skills.

In this video segment adapted from ZOOM, the cast shows how the 34 steps in their Rube Goldberg invention use everything from gravity to carbon dioxide gas in order to accomplish one simple task: pouring a glass of milk.

In this video segment from ZOOM, Jillian explains how her simple machine uses marbles, levers, flowing sand, and a spinning wheel to water a plant.

This task was developed by high school and postsecondary mathematics and design/pre-construction educators, and validated by content experts in the Common Core State Standards in mathematics and the National Career Clusters Knowledge & Skills Statements. It was developed with the purpose of demonstrating how the Common Core and CTE Knowledge & Skills Statements can be integrated into classroom learning - and to provide classroom teachers with a truly authentic task for either mathematics or CTE courses.

This task was developed by high school and postsecondary mathematics and design/pre-construction educators, and validated by content experts in the Common Core State Standards in mathematics and the National Career Clusters Knowledge & Skills Statements. It was developed with the purpose of demonstrating how the Common Core and CTE Knowledge & Skills Statements can be integrated into classroom learning - and to provide classroom teachers with a truly authentic task for either mathematics or CTE courses.

This task was developed by high school and postsecondary mathematics and design/pre-construction educators, and validated by content experts in the Common Core State Standards in mathematics and the National Career Clusters Knowledge & Skills Statements. It was developed with the purpose of demonstrating how the Common Core and CTE Knowledge & Skills Statements can be integrated into classroom learning - and to provide classroom teachers with a truly authentic task for either mathematics or CTE courses.

This task was developed by high school and postsecondary mathematics and design/pre-construction educators, and validated by content experts in the Common Core State Standards in mathematics and the National Career Clusters Knowledge & Skills Statements. It was developed with the purpose of demonstrating how the Common Core and CTE Knowledge & Skills Statements can be integrated into classroom learning - and to provide classroom teachers with a truly authentic task for either mathematics or CTE courses.

This video lesson aims to motivate students about chemistry and to raise their awareness about how chemistry helps in solving certain environmental problems. In this lesson, the air pollution problem created by cars and other vehicles is presented. The lesson will highlight causes of this problem, harmful products from it and possible solutions. There will also be discussion of ways to convert the pollutants produced by burning oil in vehicles into more friendly products.

The City X Project is an international educational workshop for 8-12 year-old students that teaches creative problem solving using 3D printing technologies and the design process. This 6-10 hour workshop is designed for 3rd-6th grade classrooms but can be adapted to fit a variety of environments. Read a full overview of the experience here: http://www.cityxproject.com/workshop/

This wiki page describes the DIY Design Challenge Activity used during ISKME's Teacher Academy. Design a DIY Project for students that meets the following design principles:The design must meet a need for their school community. The design must use collaboration between teacher, student, and community. The design must be multidisciplinary. The design must use low cost and/or no cost materials. Group examples are included.

This activity was created by Molly Clare Wilson, it is a quick introductory design thinking exercise.

An ethnography expedition enables you to gain understanding, discover insights, and (re)frame design opportunities.

An experiment expedition allows you to test and refine solution(s)/intervention(s) and question underlying assumptions. There are typically many stages of prototyping before determining your ultimate intervention. Mark your current understanding of your stage of testing for this expedition (What are you testing?)

This is a highly adaptable outline for how design thinking could be introduced to your learners over a multi-day project. This plan works best if students are divided up into groups of 3-4 for all work except the introduction to each concept at the beginning of class. Learners should stay in the same group for the whole class.

Includes pre-work links, general instructions to guide planning for each day, design thinking student handouts, and multi-grade NGSS standards linked to design thinking.

This lesson aims to introduce students at the top of the K-12 ladder to the concept of Design Thinking via Common Core Literacy Standards recently introduced

This lesson aims to introduce students at the top of the K-12 ladder to the concept of Design Thinking via Common Core Literacy Standards recently introduced

In courses and programs with community-sponsored or industry-sponsored projects, the handoff between the design team and the sponsoring partner is a particularly vulnerable transition. Innovations with the potential for impact fail shortly after the handoff for myriad reasons, including: inadequate resource allocation (time, money, skills); no clear institutional champion; inadequate institutional will to see the concept through further trial, iteration, and growth; and more. What might it look like to design the handoff? This lesson prompts design students (high school through graduate school) to begin a design project within a design project: to empathize with the handoff’s stakeholders; to define the handoff’s key needs and opportunities; to ideate novel handoff artifacts, strategies, and processes; to prototype improvements to their intended handoff strategy; and to test these strategies before the class or program ends so they can make adjustments and improvements.

The “Einstein Project” is a framework that is designed to help you find a solution to an everyday problem that makes you passionate in your thinking and designing. This project is designed to make you think outside of the box as active learners and create solutions in uncommon ways, forget about failing or succeeding and take chances.

This site presents challenges faced by NASA engineers who are developing the next generation of aerospace vehicles. The challenges: thermal protection systems, spacecraft structures, electrodynamic propulsion systems, propellers, and personal satellite assistants. Students design, build, test, re-design, and re-build models that meet specified design criteria, using the same analytical skills as engineers.

In this lesson, students will learn what erosion is and how human actions influence erosion. Includes introduction, demonstration instructions, and questions for wrap-up discussion.

NGSS: 2-ESS2-1

Time: 50 minutes

Materials: plastic containers with sand and gravel, sponges, and plastic cups

In this Design Challenge, families and friends work together to design the tallest structure that they can, using only the materials provided.

In the Future of Electric Transportation Design Challenge - a soup-to-nuts curriculum toolkit from Construct - you'll ask young people to find new and novel ways to increase use & equitable access to electric vehicles. This comprehensive toolkit is intended for classroom teachers and other educators interested in running a multi-week or full-term design challenge with students.

The guide is written with 8th-9th graders as a target grade level, however this curriculum could easily be adapted for both older and younger students: 5th-12th grade. An optional feature in this challenge experience is to have students submit their design briefs (anonymously from their teacher) for the opportunity to be recognized by Construct and Industry Leaders interested in their concepts! A teacher running this Transportation Design Challenge could connect it to multiple standards at multiple grade-levels in multiple subject areas. Construct has facilitated several cohort-based challenges for middle and high school students, using this toolkit, and we are excited to be able to provide this curriculum at no charge to any interested teachers.

We are happy to answer any questions - you can reach us at info@constructlearns.org. We also offer additional coaching support. Please download this Challenge and share it with your colleagues! If you opt to run the Challenge in your classroom, we do hope you'll reach back and let us know how it worked for YOU! With your feedback, we'll keep iterating and improving and work to make this a user-friendly, joy-provoking, flexible, rigorous, effective, skills-building and FUN curriculum toolkit for you and your students.

This is a STEM unit that can be used in conjunction with ITEEA EbD TEEMS Grade 2 Our Environment, Our Health Unit. Teachers might want to use this STEM Unit with environmental units and Earth Day. Students learn about their positive and negative impact on their environment. Students learn that they can have a positive impact on their environment when they use the 4 R’s: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Redesign process.

Young students seem fascinated by how their bodies work. This unit serves as an introduction for young students to begin their fundamental understanding of human biology.

The focus in this six-week curriculum unit is for primary-grade scientists to build some conceptual knowledge of the human skeletal system. The use of inquiry allows students at all levels to learn in an inherently differentiated environment, learning new concepts and experiencing laboratory experiments and classroom demonstrations throughout this unit on how our skeleton helps us.

The learning begins with the primary mentor texts, the picture book, The Skeleton Inside You by Philip Balestrino and Bones by Stephen Krensky. Classroom activities include creating models of bones, viewing x-rays, brainstorming design solutions for damaged or missing bones, measuring bones and determining structure features and taking a field trip to the local museum to view and draw skeletons. Students will maintain a science journal throughout the unit.

We want to develop citizens who are knowledgeable problem-solvers as they tackle the challenges of improving the quality of life for themselves and the world around them. One approach that has been heavily utilized in universities and businesses in recent times is known as Design Thinking. It is a model adopted by famous companies such as Google, Apple and Airbnb and they have wielded it to notable effect. The design thinking model is an incredibly powerful and useful process for students to use whenever they are faced with designing solutions to help others. Like any process or skill, it will take practice to become good at it.

While the heart of this unit is the Design Thinking process, I have also connected it to life science concepts related to the human body as outlined in both NGSS and Connecticut State Standards. The unit should take nine or ten 45 minute lessons to complete, depending on the complexity of the projects to be prototyped and tested.

Participants collaborate in ISKME's OER Design Lab at Maker Faire to brainstorm, prototype, and present new ideas for teaching and learning. Each participant creates an Open Educational Resource (OER) that will be shared on OER Commons and with teachers during the Maker Faire follow up Teachers as Makers Academy.

Maker Faire participants collaborate in ISKME's Design Lab, using digital stories and salvaged materials to design an innovative school of the future. The Design Lab features Makers Mauro ffortisimo Di Nucci's deconstructed piano and INKA Biospheric Systems' Vertical Garden; as well as Student and Teacher project examples that integrate art, science, sustainability, and green design inspire the creation of shareable open-source learning resources. This wiki page showcases photos and video from the Design Lab, open educational resources for teachers, and a step by step guide through the design process.

ISKME's Design Lab 2011: Make an OER Maker Faire participants collaborate in ISKME's Design Lab to brainstorm, prototype, and present new ideas in teaching and learning. This wiki page showcases photos and video from the Design Lab and a step by step guide through the design process used.

ISKME's OER Commons Teacher Training Initiative offers teachers a collaborative professional development model centered on engagement with Open Educational Resources (OER). The OER Commons Teacher Training Initiative is rooted in the idea that equitable access to high-quality education is a global imperative. Open Educational Resources, or OER, offer opportunities for systemic change in teaching and learning through accessible content, and importantly, through embedding participatory processes and effective technologies to engage with learning for all.

This wiki page describes ISKME's Teachers as Makers Professional Development Academy.A two day professional development teacher training for the Maker inside each of us. We will explore how Maker-Teacher collaboration can facilitate innovation in the classroom. The Makers’ Projects are points of inspiration for Teachers as they experience DIY inquiry and design. Teachers will have time to brainstorm, create, reflect, and share how their experiences at Maker Faire and with Make Teacher Academy can translate into their teaching using online resources and collaborative tools. This page includes links, activities, photos, video, and group presentations from the Academy.

Activities, resources, photos and videos from ISKME's two day professional development teacher training that explores Open Educational Resources (OER) and Maker-Teacher collaborations to facilitate innovation in the classroom. The Makers’ projects are points of inspiration for Teachers while they engage in design-thinking activities to create, remix, and share OER Projects with online collaborative tools.

ISKME's Use Case Design Lab from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s OER Grantees Meeting, April 22nd, 2014 - April 24th, 2014: OER Value Proposition and Evidence of Impact in 2014
http://iskme.org/events/oer-grantee-meeting-2014

This unit looks at the interplay between losses in privacy and gains in convenience that accompany the ever-expanding use of and reliance on digital media and technology in our lives. The aim is not to convince students of a specific stance; rather, it is to provide an opportunity for students to look critically at the ways in which privacy has changed and to think about taking intentional action regarding their own use of digital media.

Each week of the unit, students will grapple with an essential question that focuses their attention on one aspect of privacy. As the core text, George Orwell’s 1984 elucidates two major definitions of privacy: first, the internal thoughts that we develop and contemplate without outside influence; and second, the freedom from being observed, accessed, and controlled by outsiders.

Throughout this unit, students will produce short argumentative pieces drawing evidence from the texts read for and discussed in class. The short pieces of writing students produce throughout the class will culminate in a final argumentative essay weighing the interplay and value of privacy and convenience in our digital lives.

This wiki page describes the goals and tenents of improv, as well as four different improv activities (Name Gesture Circle, Yellow Ball, Vacations, and Thank You) used in ISKME's Professional Development Teacher Academy: Teachers as Makers June 15-16 2010 at San Mateo County Office of Education.

This resource is arranged to give teachers and librarians websites and strategies to integrate “design thinking” into instruction and libraries.

This unit exposes 10th or 11th grade Chemistry, Physical and Environmental Science students to basic concepts of Biotechnology. Students will learn that, through the use of Biotechnology, scientists and engineers are able to modify genetic structure in animals and plants to improve them for the development of beneficial products. In this unit, students will be introduced to specific biotechnology aspects of genetic engineering, artificial tissue development, tissue regeneration and tissue culture in which fragments of living tissue from an animal or plant are transferred to an artificial environment in which they can continue to survive and function.

In order to understand these larger concepts, the unit contains a short presentation of “Molecules of life”, exposing students to the fundamentals of proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, nucleic acids and their components. Concepts in biotechnology development will be accompanied by a two week lesson plan that provides real-world examples and hands-on laboratory protocols.

Students will explore what is Biotechnology as a branch of Science and explain its role in everyday life. They will also study and conduct experiments in testing proteins, carbohydrates, lipids and learn about fermentation process. Teachers will use the concepts of Biotechnology to expose students to organic chemistry concepts such as carboxylic acids, amines, and introduce students to the basic nomenclature of these organic compounds.

Innovation today considers the economic, environmental, and/or social sustainability of an innovative initiative from its inception or idea generation through to its commercialization or implementation. This concept applies to many types of innovation such as products, processes, services, technologies, and business models. Companies use innovation as a means to gain a competitive advantage and bring value to business stakeholders. This book introduces business innovation, from incremental innovation such as enhancing the performance of an existing product, service, or process, to radical or disruptive innovation such as one that has a significant impact on a market. The content examines how leaders foster a culture of innovation, how companies turn creativity into innovation, and how innovation transforms not only organizations but economies as well.

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Often library or learning commons spaces are designed or redesigned without significant input from customers(i.e. students, teachers, or librarians).  Including student voice in design helps activates students' sense of engagement and teaches problem solving skills.  Libraries are increasingly coming to recognize that including student voice in library policies and library design is not only good for students as learners, but also good for building strong and collaborative library-student relationships.  As outlined in the U.S. Department of Education's Future Ready Librarians framework,  the role of the librarian as a facility planner means that the librarian needs to engage in best practices around gathering "client" information and empowering clients as "owners" of the space.   The framework also recognizes the role of librarians in inspiring students as creators. This one week course will introduce library school students and school administrators to methods for incorporating student and teacher input into a library design project.  A core part of the module includes introducing library students to the Design Thinking Process as a vehicle for more customer-centered design.  Students will then create their own activities for gathering student or faculty input.  A variety of inspiring readings on libraries and design from both inside of OER Learning Commons, Creative Commons licensed materials, and other sources will be utilized as well as materials introducing the Design Thinking Process. Objectives:Through example, lecture, and practice students will become familiar with the Design Thinking Process and begin to use it as a method for solving library design challenges.Students will be able to identify how the Design Thinking Process interviews contribute to empathy and lead to more user centered design.Students will experience using principle of open learning to build a library environment that is inviting to all.Students will work collaboratively, modeling the collaborative work they want their future students to engage in.

Respecting a child's race, colour, gender, religion, political view, nationality, origin of birth. What does this have to do with the students in my classroom or children all over the world? Ethics and social responsibility in the classroom are invited in this unit of study.Have your students ever thought about looking at an idea through different lenses? What about thinking about one item in different ways? Through the thinking, writing, speaking exercises the students will examine the Declaration of the Rights of The Child and will create a scrapbook weaving multiple genres.

Through this unit, 7th grade students will use the engineering design thinking process to create a prototype for a solution to an injury to the integumentary system. Students will begin by learning about healthy, functional skin and then learn about two major injuries to skin: burns and skin cancer. Following their research on healthy and injured skin, students will walk through the steps of the design process to create a prototype of a solution to the problem. At the end of the unit, students will present their work and findings. This unit was designed for 7th graders but can be adapted for students in 6th through 12th grade.

The unit is framed around the engineering design process to intentionally bring an interactive approach to learning which emphasizes the importance of the process to finding answers to problems, rather than simply the outcome. At the middle school stage of their academic career, many students are often simply asking questions to directly learn the answers, rather than valuing the process of discovering the solution. Through this unit, students will become equipped with problem-solving skills that will shape their thinking in and outside of the classroom. This unit is designed with hopes of engaging students in a new way of thinking by pushing creativity, inquiry, and inspiring students to value the process of discovering solutions.

Context, purpose and audience. There are two broad types of assumptions that designers must identify and address: the first type are assumptions they, as designers, have as they begin a project; the second type are assumptions that are ambient in the project context–assumptions that many of the project stakeholders either hold or frequently experience. In both cases, naming the assumption and developing an articulation for how that assumption can be reconsidered can help direct a project toward greater impact.

This lesson is designed to help participants reframe these two types of assumptions. It can be used with design students from high school to continuing (adult) education. It is best delivered towards the end of the initial phase of design research (“Empathize” phase, to use the parlance of Stanford), after students have conducted interviews and other forms of research.

The lesson offers five reframe patterns. These are meant to help students identify particularly powerful articulations of reframed assumptions by providing five different jumping-off points for ideation. The patterns are best introduced and used lightly: as provocations rather than as a formula to rigidly follow.

We illustrate these reframe patterns using examples from disability studies. Thus, this lesson also serves as a “trojan horse” to infuse core design justice concepts.

Debbie Clark's 8th grade science students take several days to complete their Rube Goldberg contraptions. Bringing things from home, they experiment with the parts, design their contraption, and make a blueprint for it before beginning to build. This is a lesson that emphasizes cooperation, teamwork, creativity and design.

Working as if they were engineers, students design and construct model solar sails made of aluminum foil to move cardboard tube satellites through “space” on a string. Working in teams, they follow the engineering design thinking steps—empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test, redesign—to design and test small-scale solar sails for satellites and space probes. During the process, learn about Newton’s laws of motion and the transfer of energy from wave energy to mechanical energy. A student activity worksheet is provided.

The Solutions based on Biomimicry for Personalized Health unit will allow high school students in the Biology or Health field to develop the skills needed to assess and design solutions to worldwide healthcare issues. The next generation science standards (NGSS) are used as a basis for the development of this unit and will be woven throughout the unit to allow practice and implementation of the standards. The question formulation technique engages the students with both local and world-wide problems in healthcare. Once the problems have been defined, students will begin to design possible solutions. Biomimicry, biotechnology and engineering will be applied to the possible solutions. This will allow for students to develop various routes in personalized medicine to a viable healthcare solution. The feedback and refinement process gives students the chance to test the sustainability of their design against economic, technological and other constraints. Students will create a computer simulation and prototype to develop the healthcare solution. Once the redesign process has been completed the students will research how to pitch their new engineering healthcare solution. The format will be similar to ‘Shark Tank’ and validators will have the opportunity to question the students on their innovation as well as decide whether they are interested in investing. Overall, the unit is a comprehensive personalized health unit that includes all science and engineering practices and the engineering performance expectations.

Prepare for a POSTDIGITAL world of OPPORTUNITY at this free community technology event.Interactive learning about our use of mobile devices and broadband technologies guides the design of a human-centered, digital technology infrastructure for Albany, NY during this community technology event. The Howe Branch Library kicks off the Tech-Com Albany Symposium as the host of the opening plenary session on design-thinking about data diets, WiFi hotspots, and user experience concerns on Friday, April 28, 2017 at 10AM.  Trinity Alliance CSCC, co-hosts the second day of the symposium with a half day of interactive workshops on inclusive thinking in STEM and career choice on Saturday, April 29th at 8:30AM. Pre-register today! Tech-Com Albany Plenary Session Data - Friday, April 28, 2017 

If we take a constructivist approach to learning in libraries, then library spaces should be responsive to student needs. As Theodore Creighton points out in Setting the Stage for Staff Development,  "the teacher’s responsibilities involve creating classroom environments where students think, explore, and construct meaning, while including opportunities for students to have social interaction."  Similarly, library spaces, which allow support for both classes and "free-range" learning should do the same.  In a previous OER Commons module by this author on library space design, students studied methods for gathering student input into design. The next step is to begin incorporating that input into the actual design process and to apply input to the space as a whole.   Too often librarians start with furniture rather than starting with the purposes and mission of the program and space. As Malcolm Brown points out,"Creating a vision for learning and learning spaces is a powerful leverage point; it informs almost all other decisions about learning space design. A vision also allows us to effectively articulate to all constituents what we are trying to accomplish. The vision helps organize all participants in the design and implementation of these spaces as well as the activities they support. Simply installing wireless access points and fresh carpeting isn't enough if done in isolation; such improvements pay real dividends only if they are in concert with the institution's overall teaching and learning objectives."  (Learning Spaces)Prospective librarians may not have a current space to design, but they can begin envisioning space as a construct that incorporates user needs and wants and that drives program goals, and begin to think about spaces as a whole.   This module particularly focuses on ideas contained in the book Language of School Design(Nair and Fielding) and work by Ewan McIntosh (notosh.org).  Both works  ask library designers to think of spaces in terms of zones and how those zones make a variety of student learning possible.  A series of readings and recordings will provide an introduction to these concepts with examples.  School Librarian Competencies , 4, 5, and 10http://researchguides.austincc.edu/c.php?g=554360&p=3891603ISTE Educator Standards  2 and 5https://www.iste.org/standards/standards/for-educators

This video is meant to be a fun, hands-on session that gets students to think hard about how machines work. It teaches them the connection between the geometry that they study and the kinematics that engineers use -- explaining that kinematics is simply geometry in motion. In this lesson, geometry will be used in a way that students are not used to. Materials necessary for the hands-on activities include two options: pegboard, nails/screws and a small saw; or colored construction paper, thumbtacks and scissors. Some in-class activities for the breaks between the video segments include: exploring the role of geometry in a slider-crank mechanism; determining at which point to locate a joint or bearing in a mechanism; recognizing useful mechanisms in the students' communities that employ the same guided motion they have been studying.

CRISPR-Cas9 is a gene-editing technology with potential to expand the agricultural industry and improve human health. However, this technology may have unforeseeable consequences and adverse effects for society. Statistical procedures are often used to study public perceptions of controversial technologies. In this unit plan, students will design and administer surveys to investigate how their peers feel about various applications of gene-editing technology. In the process, students will apply random sampling methods and learn how to minimize response bias. Once their surveys are completed, students will analyze the results using contingency tables, confidence intervals, and hypothesis tests. The ultimate goal of this unit will be to help students to create clear policies for regulating the use of CRISPR-Cas9 and defend these policies with their statistical findings.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), immunizations are one of the public health’s most cost-effective inventions. The United Nations (UN) created several sustainable development goals to ensure a sustainable future for all. One of these goals focuses on good health and well-being at all ages. Vaccinations play a vital role in achieving this goal. In 1803, Edward Jenner coined the term vaccination, from the Latin word “Vacca” which means cow. Vaccines are substances that consist of weakened, dead, or incomplete portions of pathogens or antigens. Vaccines help prevent diseases and are one of the most important achievements of mankind. Research shows that vaccines help prevent a million deaths per year worldwide, increase average life span, and help eradicate infectious diseases such as smallpox. The current unit, targeted to high school students, dives into the history of infectious diseases and vaccinations, different types of immunity and how they are acquired, a brief overview of how vaccinations help produce antibodies that combat disease-causing agents and briefly discuss the vaccination delivery systems that are currently used worldwide. This unit could be taught over a period of 3-4 weeks, the unit introduces the Design Thinking Process where students embrace empathy, work collaboratively, create “human-centric” solutions to problems.

This unit focuses on the blending of vaccine focused content with basic biology content. The blending of content primarily concerns the human immune system. Allowing high school biology students to explore human vaccine technology through fundamental immune system knowledge and providing a tangible and relatable way to engage with these two complex topics to aid student understanding of how a vaccine works on the individual level. Prior to addressing the science behind how a vaccine leverages the immune system some vaccine focused content will provide a brief history of vaccines and explanation of vaccine types. Herd immunity will also be discussed within the unit. Herd immunity refers to the percentage of immune population threshold that is necessary to avoid an epidemic. Herd immunity is about understanding how vaccines work on a population level. It is relevant that students understand that vaccines are not just an individual health issue and are perhaps more importantly a community health issue. These topic areas will also allow the unit to explore the pressing and relevant vaccine related issue of barriers to vaccine adoption and public adoption of vaccine protocols. Finally, the likely future of vaccine technology, DNA vaccines, will be discussed. DNA vaccines offer much promise in eliminating some inherent vaccination issues such as transport, storage, ease of production, and safety.

In this lesson, designed for a heterogeneous group of students that includes English-language learners, students work together to plan a website based on their home knowledge. An introductory lesson outlines the structure and components of simple websites (home page, titles, headings, links). Students take home and complete a bilingual student and family interest survey, then work in groups of four or five to identify common themes among the responses. Each group makes a flow chart to think graphically about the contents of their planned website. Each student keeps a project notebook to record new ideas, summarize group work, and share the project with family members. The teacher can make the planned websites a reality using one of the online website-building platforms in the Resources list.

This activity is based on a discussion in pairs or groups. It can be a pre-activity or a post activity. The main purpose of this activity is to make learners  start with a brainstorming and then discuss their  ideas in relation to entrepreneurship and fund raising.  One important objective is to use the linguistic devices and transition tools to properly use the language for professional purposes or for academic purposes ( communication course). It can be a speaking activity and then developed in a written activity.