In this activity, students determine their own eyesight and calculate what a …
In this activity, students determine their own eyesight and calculate what a good average eyesight value for the class would be. Students learn about technologies to enhance eyesight and how engineers play an important role in the development of these technologies.
This lesson will allow students to select and share what details are …
This lesson will allow students to select and share what details are important on a topic. Groups of students will research a topic and then discuss and determine the top 25 important things someone should know about the topic.
In this lesson, students expand their understanding of solid waste management to …
In this lesson, students expand their understanding of solid waste management to include the idea of 3RC (reduce, reuse, recycle and compost). They will look at the effects of packaging decisions (reducing) and learn about engineering advancements in packaging materials and solid waste management. Also, they will observe biodegradation in a model landfill (composting).
The arts reflect the society that creates them. Nowhere is this truer …
The arts reflect the society that creates them. Nowhere is this truer than in the case of the ancient Greeks. Through their temples, sculpture, and pottery, the Greeks incorporated a fundamental principle of their culture: arete. To the Greeks, arete meant excellence and reaching one's full potential.
This unit on thermal energy transfer begins with students testing whether a …
This unit on thermal energy transfer begins with students testing whether a new plastic cup sold by a store keeps a drink colder for longer compared to the regular plastic cup that comes free with the drink. Students find that the drink in the regular cup warms up more than the drink in the special cup. This prompts students to identify features of the cups that are different, such as the lid, walls, and hole for the straw, that might explain why one drink warms up more than the other.
Students investigate the different cup features they conjecture are important to explaining the phenomenon, starting with the lid. They model how matter can enter or exit the cup via evaporation However, they find that in a completely closed system, the liquid inside the cup still changes temperature. This motivates the need to trace the transfer of energy into the drink as it warms up. Through a series of lab investigations and simulations, students find that there are two ways to transfer energy into the drink: (1) the absorption of light and (2) thermal energy from the warmer air around the drink. They are then challenged to design their own drink container that can perform as well as the store-bought container, following a set of design criteria and constraints.
This unit on weather, climate, and water cycling is broken into four …
This unit on weather, climate, and water cycling is broken into four separate lesson sets. In the first two lesson sets, students explain small-scale storms. In the third and fourth lesson sets, students explain mesoscale weather systems and climate-level patterns of precipitation. Each of these two parts of the unit is grounded in a different anchoring phenomenon.
The unit starts out with anchoring students in the exploration of a series of videos of hailstorms from different locations across the country at different times of the year. The videos show that pieces of ice of different sizes (some very large) are falling out of the sky, sometimes accompanied by rain and wind gusts, all on days when the temperature of the air outside remained above freezing for the entire day. These cases spark questions and ideas for investigations, such as investigating how ice can be falling from the sky on a warm day, how clouds form, why some clouds produce storms with large amounts of precipitation and others don’t, and how all that water gets into the air in the first place.
The second half of the unit is anchored in the exploration of a weather report of a winter storm that affected large portions of the midwestern United States. The maps, transcripts, and video that students analyze show them that the storm was forecasted to produce large amounts of snow and ice accumulation in large portions of the northeastern part of the country within the next day. This case sparks questions and ideas for investigations around trying to figure out what could be causing such a large-scale storm and why it would end up affecting a different part of the country a day later.
In this part of the unit, students are exploring how global temperatures …
In this part of the unit, students are exploring how global temperatures have changed over the past hundred years. Students will examine tables and graphs about global temperatures and carbon dioxide levels, human consumption of food, and human consumption of natural resources. They will find patterns in the graphs. Based on this data, students will construct an argument about how human activities (increase in population and consumption of natural resources) cause global temperatures to increase.
This unit on metabolic reactions in the human body starts out with …
This unit on metabolic reactions in the human body starts out with students exploring a real case study of a middle-school girl named M’Kenna, who reported some alarming symptoms to her doctor. Her symptoms included an inability to concentrate, headaches, stomach issues when she eats, and a lack of energy for everyday activities and sports that she used to play regularly. She also reported noticeable weight loss over the past few months, in spite of consuming what appeared to be a healthy diet. Her case sparks questions and ideas for investigations around trying to figure out which pathways and processes in M’Kenna’s body might be functioning differently than a healthy system and why.
Students investigate data specific to M’Kenna’s case in the form of doctor’s notes, endoscopy images and reports, growth charts, and micrographs. They also draw from their results from laboratory experiments on the chemical changes involving the processing of food and from digital interactives to explore how food is transported, transformed, stored, and used across different body systems in all people. Through this work of figuring out what is causing M’Kenna’s symptoms, the class discovers what happens to the food we eat after it enters our bodies and how M’Kenna’s different symptoms are connected.
This is an online module created for the 3rd Grade of the …
This is an online module created for the 3rd Grade of the Junior High School. The topic of the lesson is the "7 Wonders of the World", and its main emphasis is placed on the Listening comprehension skills practice.
Welcome to the mystery and wonder that is ancient China. In the …
Welcome to the mystery and wonder that is ancient China. In the subsequent readings, you will learn that Chinese culture developed differently from any other ancient civilization. Chinese history is a lesson in paradoxes. Their past is full of natural disasters and wars; yet some of the most beautiful art, literature, and architecture have been created and preserved through the 13 dynastic periods, spanning 4,000 years into the 20th century. These trends are reflected by three of the most influential dynasties of China: the Shang, Han, and Tang.
AAAS offers hundreds of science activities and lessons for grades K-12 searchable …
AAAS offers hundreds of science activities and lessons for grades K-12 searchable by grade and topic. It also includes separate activities for after-school and home programs
AI (Artificial Intelligence) is becoming a topic of increasing social importance. Political …
AI (Artificial Intelligence) is becoming a topic of increasing social importance. Political reactions like the publication of the AI strategy of the German Government in late 2018 are one indicator for that. But more importantly, we are already interacting with AI systems as if it were the most natural thing in the world, for example, when using language assistants such as Siri or Alexa. Nevertheless, according to surveys, over 50% of Germans do not know what artificial intelligence is.
To address this issue, we have put together a collection of Unplugged Activities related to the topic of AI. Unplugged Activities provide approaches that help learners of all ages to experience the ideas and concepts of computer science actively and do without the use of a computer.
This brochure contains five activities you can use to teach ideas and concepts of artificial intelligence to learners of all ages.
Nowadays, AI is primarily realized through machine learning, but artificial intelligence is far more than that: AI is not only about technical aspects, but also raises questions of social relevance. This brochure shows possibilities, how these topics can be discussed with children and adults
For students interested in studying biomechanical engineering, especially in the field of …
For students interested in studying biomechanical engineering, especially in the field of surgery, this lesson serves as an anatomy and physiology primer of the abdominopelvic cavity. Students are introduced to the abdominopelvic cavity—a region of the body that is the focus of laparoscopic surgery—as well as the benefits and drawbacks of laparoscopic surgery. Understanding the abdominopelvic environment and laparoscopic surgery is critical for biomechanical engineers who design laparoscopic surgical tools.
This activity focuses on getting the students to think about disabilities and …
This activity focuses on getting the students to think about disabilities and how they can make some aspects of life more difficult. The students are asked to pick a disability and design a new kind of sport for it.
Students learn about the concepts of accuracy and approximation as they pertain …
Students learn about the concepts of accuracy and approximation as they pertain to robotics, gain insight into experimental accuracy, and learn how and when to estimate values that they measure. Students also explore sources of error stemming from the robot setup and rounding numbers.
In this lesson, students will be presented with a project that they …
In this lesson, students will be presented with a project that they will decompose with their partners without having access to its code and without access to a computer. Students will work in teams to recreate the project shown in the following lesson.
This patient education program explains acne including the causes and treatments. This …
This patient education program explains acne including the causes and treatments. This resource is a MedlinePlus Interactive Health Tutorial from the National Library of Medicine, designed and developed by the Patient Education Institute.
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