This learning video introduces high school students to a topic they would not ordinarily study in school, biotechnology, and to different applications of biotechnology that relate to the main theme of the module - making the desert greener. After reviewing traditional methods used for manipulating plants to produce desired traits, students will learn about the methods of making transgenic plants. Dr. Ziad discusses a real world problem that is critical in his country, Jordan, where much of the land is desert. A prerequisite to this video lesson is some background in biology.

Students read news reports and first-person accounts to imagine what it would be like to be in a blackout in a large city. They follow news reports as if the event were unfolding in real-time and keep weblogs or journals of their experience as they imagine it, taking on different roles of people who live in the city or commute there to work. They use their journal accounts to create a play or screenplay that depicts what the August 2003 blackout was like for the people in the U.S. and Canada who experienced it. Although this activity is geared towards fifth-grade and older students, it could be easily adapted for younger students.

Students are introduced to our Sun as they explore its composition, what is happening inside it, its relationship to our planet (our energy source), and the ways engineers help us learn about it.

This blog post from the Wisconsin Fast Plants features open source educator resources, developed in 2023. These resources support the teaching of genetics concepts with tools focused on a Dihybrid Inheritance Study. This study provides a two-week approach for observing three generations of plant seedlings, germinated in Petri dishes. Observation of these three generations provides a model for inheritance of two traits found in Fast Plants seed varieties: Non-Purple Stem and Rosette-Dwarf. While observing traits in seedlings, students are guided to discuss norms for data collection and generate an evidence based model that explains the observed traits. This post is primarily a point of reference, giving background information about the Dihybrid Inheritance Study activity and providing links to free downloadable resources for teaching in your classroom. Resources include slideshows with photos of seedlings and discussion prompts, an implementation calendar, and handouts for preparation of Petri dishes in the classroom.

This blog post from the Wisconsin Fast Plants features open source educator resources, developed in 2023. These NGSS- and Ag-Standards aligned resources, named Investigating Brassicas Around the World with Fast Plants include a full lesson plan with supporting plant breeding activities, video about Brassica origins, and supplemental reading materials. This investigation is centered around the phenomenon question: "How is it that so many plants classified as Brassica look and taste different?". In this investigation, students are guided to gather evidence and develop claims to answer the phenomenon question. This post is primarily a point of reference, giving background information about the Investigating Brassicas Around the World lesson and providing links to free downloadable resources for teaching this lesson in your classroom.

Students are introduced to the circulatory system, the heart, and blood flow in the human body. Through guided pre-reading, during-reading and post-reading activities, students learn about the circulatory system's parts, functions and disorders, as well as engineering medical solutions. By cultivating literacy practices as presented in this lesson, students can improve their scientific and technological literacy.

Students learn about the role engineers and engineering play in repairing severe bone fractures. They acquire knowledge about the design and development of implant rods, pins, plates, screws and bone grafts. They learn about materials science, biocompatibility and minimally-invasive surgery.

In this math activity, students conduct a strength test using modeling clay, creating their own stress vs. strain graphs, which they compare to typical steel and concrete graphs. They learn the difference between brittle and ductile materials and how understanding the strength of materials, especially steel and concrete, is important for engineers who design bridges and structures.

Students are introduced to the respiratory system, the lungs and air. They learn about how the lungs and diaphragm work, how air pollution affects lungs and respiratory functions, some widespread respiratory problems, and how engineers help us stay healthy by designing machines and medicines that support respiratory health and function.

Students explore how tension and compression forces act on three different bridge types. Using sponges, cardboard and string, they create models of beam, arch and suspension bridges and apply forces to understand how they disperse or transfer these loads.

Students are presented with a brief history of bridges as they learn about the three main bridge types: beam, arch and suspension. They are introduced to two natural forces tension and compression common to all bridges and structures. Throughout history, and today, bridges are important for connecting people to resources, places and other people. Students become more aware of the variety and value of bridges around us in our everyday lives.

Students create their own anemometers instruments for measuring wind speed. They see how an anemometer measures wind speed by taking measurements at various school locations. They also learn about different types of anemometers, real-world applications, and how wind speed information helps engineers decide where to place wind turbines.

Facies models are often abstract and difficult for undergraduate students to fully understand. As a result, they tend to memorize idealized diagrams from text books that can be reproduced for an exam, then forgotten.

The purpose of this exercise is to help students understand a model by "building" it "piece by piece" and relating the various components to concepts they learned earlier in the semester, such as energy relationships, base level, facies, facies associations, and Walther's Law. It is designed to begin as an in-class discussion led by the instructor using a black or white board, followed by group collaboration, out-of-class exercises, and concluding with a formal examination.

The example provided here is for a prograding shoreface system; however, the same approach can be applied to any depositional system.

The purpose of this exercise is to guide students through the process of constructing a stratigraphic sequence based on understanding relationships between the production of space and filling that space with sediment.

We are surrounded everyday by circuits that utilize "in parallel" and "in series" circuitry. Complicated circuits designed by engineers are made of many simpler parallel and series circuits. In this hands-on activity, students build parallel circuits, exploring how they function and their unique features.

In this lesson, students learn that navigational techniques change when people travel to different places land, sea, air and in space. For example, an explorer traveling by land uses different methods of navigation than a sailor or an astronaut.

Short Description:
CLUE was designed to help students attain a confident, competent, and coherent understanding of basic chemistry, in particular of the chemistry associated with organisms and their origins.

Long Description:
Chemistry, Life the Universe and Everything (CLUE) is a transformed general chemistry curriculum, developed by an interdisciplinary team of a chemist and a molecular biologist, that aims to bring about evidence-based change in general chemistry. General Chemistry is a gateway course for many students intending on careers in scientific, engineering, and health care-related disciplines. While there have been many attempts to improve the outcomes for these students, little has changed over the past 60 years. Recent transformation efforts have focused primarily on incorporating student engagement techniques into the course, rather than considering what it is that is important for students to learn. CLUE is different. CLUE was developed using a design research approach that focuses on scaffolded progressions around four core ideas: structure and properties, bonding and interactions, energy, and change and stability. The course emphasizes causal mechanistic reasoning in order to help students move beyond knowing that, to knowing how and knowing why chemical phenomena occur.

Word Count: 104795

ISBN: 978-1-62610-101-2

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

Students construct three-dimensional models of water catchment basins using everyday objects to form hills, mountains, valleys and water sources. They experiment to see where rain travels and collects, and survey water pathways to see how they can be altered by natural and human activities. Students discuss how engineers design structures that impact water collection, as well as systems that clean and distribute water.

In this course, we will seek to interpret capitalism using ideas from biological evolution: firms pursuing varied strategies and facing extinction when those strategies fail are analogous to organisms struggling for survival in nature. For this reason, it is less concerned with ultimate judgment of capitalism than with the ways it can be shaped to fit our more specific objectives Š—– for the natural environment, public health, alleviation of poverty, and development of human potential in every child. Each book we read will be explicitly or implicitly an argument about good and bad consequences of capitalism.

This multi-term assignment introduces students to local indigenous stories, significant plants and animals of our region and some basic skills in reading animal tracks and signs.

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