Meet savvy scientist and inventor Hedy Lamarr, also known for her career as a glamorous international movie star. Dubbed "The Most Beautiful Woman in the World," Hedy actually preferred spending time creating inventions in her workshop to strutting down the red carpet. Hedy co-invented the technology known as frequency hopping, which turned out to be one of the most important scientific breakthroughs of the twentieth century! Today's cell phone, computers, and other electronic devices would be more vulnerable to hacking without the groundbreaking system discovered by a world-famous actress and gifted inventor. The resource includes a lesson plan/book card, a design challenge, and copy of a design thinking journal that provide guidance on using the book to inspire students' curiosity for design thinking. Maker Challenge: Create small groups. Pass out one of the challenges listed in the lesson plan/book card to each group for them to come up with an invention that will solve the problem at hand.

Students are introduced to a challenge question. Towards answering the question, they generate ideas for what they need to know about medicines and how they move through our bodies, watch a few short videos to gain multiple perspectives, and then learn lecture material to obtain a basic understanding of how antibiotics kill bacteria in the human body. They learn why different forms of medicine (pill, liquid or shot) get into the blood stream at different speeds.

The Digestion and Nutrition Student Edition book is one of ten volumes making up the Human Biology curriculum, an interdisciplinary and inquiry-based approach to the study of life science.

The Ecology Student Edition book is one of ten volumes making up the Human Biology curriculum, an interdisciplinary and inquiry-based approach to the study of life science.

This unit investigates the delicate balance of an ecosystem through the disruptive effects of an invasive species.  Students look at various case studies of different invasives, most of which affect ecosystems in Michigan.  The great Lakes provide a backdrop for an exploration of food webs, predator-prey interactions, and trophic levels through the lens of the changes caused by the introduction of an invasive species.

 LESSON 1: THE SALTY STUMPER: A GROUNDWATER CASE STUDY Building upon prior knowledge of the water cycle, students explore how groundwater moves and interacts with surface water in a watershed. Using data from a case study in Ottawa County, students consider how both natural characteristics of an aquifer and human activities can affect the quantity and quality of groundwater for human use. Students build models to understand groundwater processes, construct arguments based on evidence for how and why issues of groundwater quantity and quality exist, and evaluate the benefits and constraints of various solutions to these problems. 

 LESSON 3: ROUGE RIVER WATERSHED Students create a simple model of a watershed, identify important terminology about watersheds and use an infographic to analyze data from the Rouge River Watershed (RRW). The conclusion of the lesson is an activity to design a stream daylighting project. The project explores the impacts of Combined Sewer Overflows (CSO’s) as well as more comprehensive watershed restoration actions, including habitat restoration and storm water controls. The information from the infographic comes from several reports centered on the Rouge River National Wet Weather Demonstration Project, which was funded by the EPA, state and local governments.

Investigate marine debris, the role of ocean gyres, and how humans impact trash accumulation.

GeoInquiries are designed to be fast and easy-to-use instructional resources that incorporate advanced web mapping technology. Each 15-minute activity in a collection is intended to be presented by the instructor from a single computer/projector classroom arrangement. No installation, fees, or logins are necessary to use these materials and software.

A young girl has a wonderful idea to make the most MAGNIFICENT thing! But making her magnificent thing is anything but easy, and the girl repeatedly tries and fails. Eventually, she quits, but a walk with her dog and time to think, she comes back to her project with renewed enthusiasm and manages to get it just right. The resource includes a lesson plan/book card, a design challenge, and copy of a design thinking journal that provide guidance on using the book to inspire students' curiosity for design thinking. Maker Challenge: Create small groups. Pass out one of the challenges listed in the lesson plan/book card to each group for them to come up with an invention that will solve the problem at hand.

A document is included in the resources folder that lists the complete standards-alignment for this book activity.

In this project, students will learn how to find the area that drains to a storm drain and the route that pollutants will take if they are dumped or washed into the drain. They will find the upstream drainage area, called a watershed, for a storm drain near Blackman Elementary School in Tennessee. Then they find the downstream flow path to where it empties into the Gulf of Mexico. Knowing how to find these, students can experiment to find the watersheds and flow paths from other storm drain locations.

Isatou Ceesay observed a growing problem in her community where people increasingly disposed of unwanted plastic bags, which accumulated into ugly heaps of trash. She found a way to be the agent of change by recycling the bags and transforming her community. The resource includes a lesson plan/book card, a design challenge, and copy of a design thinking journal that provide guidance on using the book to inspire students' curiosity for design thinking. Maker Challenge: Use plastic bags to develop a new product (i.e. jump rope).

A document is included in the resources folder that lists the complete standards-alignment for this book activity.

In this activity related to light and perception, learners use a pinhole in an index card as a magnifying glass to help their eye focus on a nearby object. Learners will also discover that because this magnifier limits the amount of light that reaches their eye from the object, the pinhole makes the object appear dimmer. Learners are encouraged to explore using pins and needles with different diameters to make different-sized holes in index cards to see how this affects the image. They can also try forming a pinhole by curling their index finger.

In this activity, learners explore how polarizing sunglasses can help diminish road glare. By rotating a pair of polarizing sunglass lenses or other polarizing materials, learners will discover that some angles are better at reducing glare than others. Learners observe light from the sky, reflected from a mirror, or reflected from the surface of a pond. Use this activity to introduce learners to principles of light and polarization.

There are many misconceptions about the chemistry concept, “Conservation of Mass”. Thus, the aim of this video lesson is to teach students about the chemical concept of Conservation of Mass through several chemistry experiments. The students will carry out experiments while assisting a fortune teller named Pak Belalang to gain victory for his kingdom. In an effort to help Pak Belalang, students should be able to answer all the questions related to the Conservation of Mass that are posed by an evil witch. In this video, materials such as a box of matches, a closed and open container, a box of panadol soluble tablets (Alka-Seltzer), and weighing scales are needed. At the end of the lesson, students will be able to see that mass is “conserved”. The lesson will take up to 60 minutes to complete.

" The science essay uses science to think about the human condition; it uses humanistic thinking to reflect on the possibilities and limits of science and technology. In this class we read and practice writing science essays of varied lengths and purposes. We will read a wide variety of science essays, ranging across disciplines, both to learn more about this genre and to inspire your own writing. This semester's reading centers on "The Dark Side," with essays ranging from Alan Lightman's "Prisoner of the Wired World" through Robin Marantz Henig's cautionary account of nano-technology ("Our Silver-Coated Future") to David Quammen's investigation of diseases that jump from animals to humans ("Deadly Contact")."

New York City in the 1860s was a mess: crowded, disgusting, filled with garbage. You see, way back in 1860, there were no subways, just cobblestone streets. That is, until Alfred Ely Beach had the idea for a fan-powered train that would travel underground. On February 26, 1870, after fifty-eight days of drilling and painting and plastering, Beach unveiled his masterpiece—and throngs of visitors took turns swooshing down the track. The resource includes a lesson plan/book card, a design challenge, and copy of a design thinking journal that provide guidance on using the book to inspire students' curiosity for design thinking. Maker Challenge: Think about the way most people in your community travel. Invent a new way of traveling around your community that takes into account the following: helpful to the community, economical to those who use it, convenient for users. What would your new travel system look like? Sketch a new design, and then create a physical prototype of the new design to scale. Keep in mind: Where the system travels, how it is powered, why it is helpful to the community, and any features that make it special.

A document is included in the resources folder that lists the complete standards-alignment for this book activity.

In this art meets science activity, learners pack silver, ball-shaped ornaments in a single layer in a box to create an array of spherical reflectors. Learners can use this as a tool to study the properties of spherical mirrors while creating colorful mosaic reflections. This is a great optics activity to use during the holiday season or any time of year.

This workshop investigates the current state of sustainability in regards to architecture, from the level of the tectonic detail to the urban environment. Current research and case studies will be investigated, and students will propose their own solutions as part of the final project.

In this activity, a lightbulb is placed in front of a concave mirror. The actual lightbulb is not visible to the viewer, but the viewer can see the mirror image of the lightbulb formed in space. When the viewer tries to touch the lightbulb, they are attempting to touch an image. Their hand moves right through what seems to be a solid object! Learners will enjoy this illusion, while investigating principles of light and mirrors. In this version of a popular Exploratorium exhibit, a lightbulb is substituted for a spring.

This activity explores deforestation trends and patterns.

GeoInquiries are designed to be fast and easy-to-use instructional resources that incorporate advanced web mapping technology. Each 15-minute activity in a collection is intended to be presented by the instructor from a single computer/projector classroom arrangement. No installation, fees, or logins are necessary to use these materials and software.