Teach Engineering
Cell Membrane Experimental Design
Grandma said to gargle with salt water for a sore throat. Was she right? In the last part of the seven-part unit, lab groups design an experiment to test a cells reaction to salt solutions. The pupils conduct their experiment to answer...
Teach Engineering
Challenges of Laparoscopic Surgery
Get some laparoscopic training without the pain with an activity that challenges class members to find out what it is like to perform laparoscopic surgery. Teams perform three different tasks and quantify their performance. The activity...
Teach Engineering
Measuring Viscosity
Groups use a marble to determine the viscosity of household fluids. The procedure calls for pupils to measure the amount of time it takes a marble to fall a specified distance in the fluids. Using unit conversions and algebra, the teams...
Rochester Institute of Technology
Laparoscopic Surgery
Nobody is as smart as all of us together. In a collaborative learning activity, scholars learn it takes a team to be successful in laparoscopic surgeries. Groups complete the laparoscopic task as a team and discuss their results to...
Teach Engineering
What Does Light See?
The second installment of a seven-part series focuses on the refraction of light and how it affects the colors we see. Learners consider how this concept connects to biosensors for cancer detection.
Teach Engineering
How Effective is Your Sunscreen?
Protect skin from UV radiation! Groups design and conduct an experiment to test the effectiveness of UV safety products. The groups collect the data from the experiment and prepare a lab report. In the second day of the activity,...
Teach Engineering
Bubbles and Biosensors
Bubbles aren't just for children. In the third installment of a seven-part series, teenagers use bubble solution to create bubbles and observe patterns of refraction on the bubble surfaces. Application of this concept to thin films in...
Teach Engineering
Show Me the Genes
Give your class a chance to show what they know. In the last installment of a seven-part series, pupils summarize and review what they have learned in the series. They present their solutions for creating a biosensor to detect cancer...
Teach Engineering
Quantum Dots and Colors
Introduce teams to quantum dot solutions with an activity that has them expose solutions to a blacklight, observe the colors, and take measurements. Groups graph the data and analyze the dependence between particle size and color...
Teach Engineering
Thirsty for Gold
In the last portion of the six-part unit, teams perform an experiment with gold nanoparticles to determine which sport drink has the most electrolytes. The nanoparticles are used as chemical sensors and fluoresce in different wavelengths...
Teach Engineering
Using Hooke's Law to Understand Materials
Provide a Hooke for a lesson on elasticity with an activity that has groups investigate a set of springs. They use a set procedure to collect data to calculate the spring constant for each spring using Hooke's Law. The groups predict the...
Teach Engineering
Heart to Heart
Begin a unit on the heart, the parts and the function of the heart, and about heart disease with a resource that includes a lecture, a PowerPoint presentation, and research information. The lesson is the first of a four-part series and...
Teach Engineering
Creepy Silly Putty
It might be silly to determine the creep rate of putty but groups will enjoy making different formulations of silly putty and playing with them to understand how the different mixtures behave. The second part of the activity has groups...
Teach Engineering
DNA Forensics and Color Pigments
Use food coloring in electrophoresis. The last segment in a four-part series mimics DNA fingerprinting by using chromatography. Teams conduct chromatography on food coloring to find colors that use similar pigmentation in their makeup.
Curated OER
Prosthetic Party
Learners examine human anatomy by creating a prosthetic limb. In this medical engineering lesson, students view numerous images of prosthetics used in science today and define several medical terms associated with prosthetics. Learners...
Curated OER
Muscles, Oh My!
Students explore the human muscular system. In this science lesson, students discuss how engineering is related to the field of bio-mechanics and human movement.
Teach Engineering
Bone Density Challenge Introduction
Can you use X-rays to measure bone mineral density? This is the essential question that learners must answer in the first installment of a seven-part series. They brainstorm ideas about necessary background information and what they...
NOAA
Importance of Deep-Sea Ecosystems – The Benthic Drugstore
You never know what you will find next in the deep sea ecosystem. So far, scientists have found items that work as anti-tumor agents, anti-inflammatory agents, agents that stop uncontrolled cell division, and much more. The instructional...
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Stem-Cell-Based Therapies
Currently, stem cell therapies treat more than 80 diseases, and that number grows every year. Individuals learn about some of these therapies and where the stem cells come from. They then focus on the future of stem cell treatments and...
Kenan Fellows
Unit 1: Introduction to Pharmacology
Learn about the study of medications, including those found in nature and those made synthetically. The first of four lessons in a series on pharmacology includes lectures, hands-on experiments, research, and more.
Teach Engineering
See the Genes
"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough" - Albert Einstein. The sixth installment of a seven-part series teaches young scientists about the importance of being able to communicate scientific research and...
Teach Engineering
The Amazing Aerogel
Introducing ... the aerogel. The first of a two-installment series teaches young engineers about the properties and uses of aerogels. A PowerPoint presentation provides information about this unique material to help solidify the concept.
Teach Engineering
Active and Passive Transport: Red Rover Send Particles Over
I can move about freely, but you cannot. The class models the movement through cell membranes by way of passive and active transport. Members of the class play the roles of various proteins, atoms, compounds, and cell actions and mimic...
Teach Engineering
Imagining DNA Structure
Let's get a closer look at DNA and other molecular structures. The first instructional activity in the series of four introduces a variety of imagining techniques that engineers and scientists use to visualize molecular structures. The...