Designer Genes For A Designer World

“It was a miracle.” Basil Heatter’s “The Long Night of the Little Boats,” which details the miraculous rescue of the British army from the shores of Dunkirk in 1940, is featured in a series of exercises that ask class members to read,...

What is out there? Groups create an alien world and determine its characteristics. The groups then become mission planners and design a mission to visit another group's world in order to find out more about this world. 

Sure, you may be able to build a better mousetrap, but what about a gum dispenser? In a fun engineering challenge, teams must design and build a working interactive gumball machine with specific constraints and criteria.

Providing clean water to a town is quite a feat... is your class up for the challenge? After a short reading about water towers, groups work together to design a working water delivery system. The water flow must be adjustable (able to...

Using popsicle sticks and glue, groups must work together to design and build a bridge that can support weight and is aesthetically pleasing. The lesson begins by learners reading about different features of bridge architecture, followed...

After reading about how wind turbines work to collect clean energy, groups brainstorm and design their own windmill. Within the provided financial and physical constraints, groups must build a working windmill using only the materials...

Ever wondered what motivates a roundworm? Introduce your biology class to C. elegans, a non-parasitic model organism that can help them understand behavioral stimuli. Paired pupils design an experiment to test the worm's reaction to...

This video about a delicate, often controversial topic, does not argue for one area or another, but does talk about the random process versus design of an involved organ. The lecturer talks freely about how infinite complexity such as...

Green roofs aren't just eco-friendly — they are literally green with trees. Groups learn about the concept of green roofs in order to be able to design one. The groups design a 5,000-square-foot green roof for a fictional apartment row...

In this STEM group of 10 activities, lesson two focuses on the question, "Just because we can, should we?" when considering genetically engineered food. Classes hear a scenario and, as young scientists and geneticists, must determine if...