Students are challenged to think as biomedical engineers and brainstorm ways to administer medication to a patient who is unable to swallow. They learn about the advantages and disadvantages of current drug delivery methods—oral, injection, topical, inhalation and suppository—and pharmaceutical design considerations, including toxicity, efficacy, size, solubility/bioavailability and drug release duration. They apply their prior knowledge about human anatomy, the circulatory system, polymers, crystals and stoichiometry to real-world biomedical applications. A Microsoft® PowerPoint® presentation and worksheets are provided. This lesson prepares students for the associated activity in which they create and test large-size drug encapsulation prototypes to provide the desired delayed release and duration timing.

In this activity, students analyze data detailing global energy sources and sinks (uses) and construct a diagram to show the relative scale and the connections between them. Discussions of scale; historical, socio-environmental, and geographic variation in this data; and implications for future energy use are included.

In this role-play activity, students take the roles of various important players in the climate change policy negotiation including politicians, scientists, environmentalists, and industry representatives. Working in these roles, students must take a position, debate with others, and then vote on legislation designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Can be used in a variety of courses including writing and rhetoric, and social sciences.

Students use a hurricane tracking map to measure the distance from a specific latitude and longitude location of the eye of a hurricane to a city. Then they use the map's scale factor to convert the distance to miles. They also apply the distance formula by creating an x-y coordinate plane on the map. Students are challenged to analyze what data might be used by computer science engineers to write code that generates hurricane tracking models. Then students analyze a MATLAB® computer code that uses the distance formula repetitively to generate a table of data that tracks a hurricane at specific time intervals. Students come to realize that using a computer program to generate the calculations (instead of by hand) is very advantageous for a dynamic situation like tracking storm movements. Their inspection of some MATLAB code helps them understand how it communicates what to do using mathematical formulas, logical instructions and repeated tasks. They also conclude that the example program is too simplistic to really be a useful tool; useful computer model tools must necessarily be much more complex.

How can we Design Cattle to Better Meet Human Needs?

In this high school Storyline unit on genetics and heredity, students are introduced to ‘SuperCows’. As they explore the vast variety of cattle breeds, students discover that cattle are specialized for different purposes and while similar, the ‘SuperCows’ are clearly unique. Students wonder what caused this diversity and specificity which leads to investigations about the role of inheritance, DNA and proteins.

Student teams design and conduct quality-control experiments to test the reliability of several ultraviolet protection factors. Students use UV-detecting beads in their experimental designs to test the effectiveness of various types of sunscreens and sunblock. For example, they might examine zinc oxide nanoparticles versus traditional organic sun protection factors. UV intensity is quantitatively measured by UVA and UVB Vernier sensors, and students record and graph their results. By designing and conducting this experiment, students compare various substances, while learning about quality control.

During this activity, students will be introduced to the concepts of the challenge. They will generate ideas for solving the grand challenge first independently, then in small groups. Finally, as a class, students will compile their ideas with a visual as a learning supplement.

In this activity, students conduct a life cycle assessment of energy used and produced in ethanol production, and a life cycle assessment of carbon dioxide used and produced in ethanol production.

Learn how to make a water filter using materials from around your home or classroom.

You are part of the NASA design crew and your task is to design a suit to keep the human body safe from the hazards of deep space. Are you up to the challenge? This is an ADA compliant document.

In this easy-to-do activity you will simulate the fluid shift felt by astronauts upon entering space.

The Integrated Conceptual Science Program Course 1 Integrated Physics and Chemistry is a three dimensional course based on the Conceptual Progression Model of the Next Generation Science Standards. It is designed to be used as part of a three course program that addresses all high school science performance expectations. Course 1 is designed for ninth grade students.
This resource includes the teacher materials, supporting documents, and short videos to support teachers in using the materials.
The Courses were designed using the Ambitious Science Teaching (AST) framework. It is strongly encouraged that before using these materials that you be familiar with AST. We suggest that you watch the AST Overview short video found here: https://datapuzzles.org/ambitious-science-teaching and explore this Google Slide deck that contains many resources designed to further your understanding of AST: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1WOUVmlm636_7i2l0GYa9JkX1TCK3NMdySfpxKN7IM7A/edit?usp=sharing

Students will choose a topic and debate the merit of that topic after extensive research and preparation.

Students apply the knowledge gained from the previous lessons and activities in this unit to write draft grant proposals to the U.S. National Institutes of Health outlining their ideas for proposed research using nanoparticles to protect against, detect or treat skin cancer. Through this exercise, students demonstrate their understanding of the environmental factors that contribute to skin cancer, the science and mathematics of UV radiation, the anatomy of human skin, current medical technology applications of nanotechnology and the societal importance of funding research in this area, as well as their communication skills in presenting plans for specific nanoscale research they would conduct using nanoparticles.

Students learn about the biomedical use of nanoparticles in the detection and treatment of cancer, including the use of quantum dots and lasers that heat-activate nanoparticles. They also learn about electrophoresis a laboratory procedure that uses an electric field to move tiny particles through a channel in order to separate them by size. They complete an online virtual mini-lab, with accompanying worksheet, to better understand gel electrophoresis. This prepares them for the associated activity to write draft research proposals to use nanoparticles to protect against, detect or treat skin cancer.

The original Native American story component lesson was developed as part of an Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) and Washington State Leadership and Assistance for Science Education Reform (LASER) project funded through an EPA Region 10 grant. The stories were told by Roger Fernandes of the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe. Mr. Fernandes has been given permission by the tribes to tell these stories.As these lessons and stories were shared prior to the adoption of the Washington State Science Learning Standards in 2013, there was a need to align these stories with the current science standards. This resource provides a current alignment and possible lesson suggestions on how these stories can be incorporated into the classroom. This alignment work has been funded by the NGSS & Climate Science Proviso of the Washington State Legislature as a part of North Central Educational Service District's award.

In this curriculum module, students in high school life science, marine science, and/or chemistry courses act as interdisciplinary scientists and delegates to investigate how the changing carbon cycle will affect the oceans along with their integral populations.

The oceans cover 70 percent of the planet and play a critical role in regulating atmospheric carbon dioxide through the interaction of physical, chemical, and biological processes. As a result of anthropogenic activity, a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration (to 760 ppm) is expected to occur by the end of this century. A quarter of the total CO2 emitted has already been absorbed by the surface oceans, changing the marine carbonate system, resulting in a decrease in pH, a change in carbonate-ion concentrations, and a change in the speciation of macro and micronutrients. The shift in the carbonate system is already drastically affecting biological processes in the oceans and is predicted to have major consequences on carbon export to the deep ocean with reverberating effects on atmospheric CO2. Put in simple terms, ocean acidification is a complex phenomenon with complex consequences. Understanding complexity and the impact of ocean acidification requires systems thinking – both in research and in education. Scientific advancement will help us better understand the problem and devise more effective solutions, but executing these solutions will require widespread public participation to mitigate this global problem.

Through these lessons, students closely model what is occurring in laboratories worldwide and at Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) through Monica Orellana’s research to analyze the effect CO2 has on ocean chemistry, ecosystems and human societies. Students experiment, analyze public data, and prepare for a mock summit to address concerns. Student groups represent key “interest groups” and design two experiments to observe the effects of CO2 on seawater pH, diatom growth, algal blooms, nutrient availability, and/or shell dissolution.

Patterns Physics is the initial course in the 3-year high school Patterns Science sequence. Patterns Physics focuses on three-dimensional (3D) learning through culturally responsive, phenomena-based storylines that intertwine the disciplinary core ideas of physics and earth science with the scientific and engineering practices and crosscutting concepts as described in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).

The Patterns High School Science Sequence (https://hsscience4all.org/) is a three year course pathway and curriculum aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).

Each course utilizes:
- Common instructional strategies
- Real world phenomena
- Design challenges to engage students and support their learning.

For more information, contact us at info@pdxstem.org.

The curriculum is a combination of teacher-generated and curated open-content materials. The Teacher-generated materials are shared freely under a Attribution-NonCommercial-Sharealike Creative Commons License.

Students are introduced to prosthetics history, purpose and benefits, main components, main types, materials, control methods, modern examples including modern materials used to make replacement body parts and the engineering design considerations to develop prostheses. They learn how engineers and medical doctors work together to improve the lives of people with amputations and the challenges faced when designing new prostheses with functional and cosmetic criteria and constraints. A PowerPoint(TM) presentation and two worksheets are provided.

This small-group activity uses engineering concepts to design energy systems for three off-the-grid towns in Mali, Ethiopia, and Namibia.