Water Remediation Lab

Students measure the effectiveness of water filters in purifying contaminated water. They prepare test water by creating different concentrations of bleach (chlorine-contaminated) water. After passing the contaminated water through commercially available Brita® water filters designed to purify drinking water, students determine the chlorine concentration of the purified water using chlorine test strips and measure the adsorption of chlorine onto activated carbon over time. They graph and analyze their results to determine the effectiveness of the filters. The household active carbon filters used are one example of engineer-designed water purification systems.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Authors: Barry Williams, Jessica Ray, Phyllis Balcerzak

Weather Maps in Motion

In this activity, students learn to interpret current weather maps. They will observe weather map loop animations on the internet, learn the concept of Zulu time (Universal Time Coordinated, UTC) and visualize the movement of fronts and air masses. They will then analyze a specific weather station model, generate a meteogram from their observations, and answer a set of questions about their observations.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Interactive

Author: Charles Burrows

Weighing and Determining the Average Density of Earth

Students learn how Newton's Law of Gravitation can be used to determine the mass of the Earth. By calculating mass and volume, they can then determine the Earth's density, and compare that result with the densities of other solar system bodies. Knowledge of Earth's density can also provide information about the planet's interior.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Interactive

Author: Eryn Klosko

What Controls the Climate?

In this exercise, students investigate long-term weather variables such as temperature and humidity to determine their affect on the climate of a particular region. They will choose two cities, use an online resource to obtain geographic and climatic information for each, and use a spreadsheet program to produce graphs that compare data for the two cities.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Interactive

Author: Glenn Dolphin

What does Pizza have to do with Ancient History?

The activity describes Eratosthenes' experiments which determined that the Earth is spherical, rather than flat. Students reproduce Eratosthenes' methods using a slice of pizza to calculate the circumference of the entire pie.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Interactive

Author: Eric Cohen

What is the Right Answer

The purpose of this resource is to introduce students to the concept that sometimes there is no one "right" answer to a question or measurement. Students learn to be careful when searching for a right answer to questions such as 'What time is it?' by comparing multiple measurements of the time of day. Students gain an intuitive understanding of the characteristics of imperfect measurements. Using different clocks, students simultaneously record the displayed times. The resulting time measurements are converted from minutes and seconds to seconds. These measurements are plotted to illustrate the mathematical techniques of averages and deviations from an average.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Interactive

Author: The GLOBE Program, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)

What Makes an Eruption Explosive?

Students learn about the underlying factors that can contribute to Plinian eruptions (which eject large amounts of pumice, gas and volcanic ash, and can result in significant death and destruction in the surrounding environment), versus more gentle, effusive eruptions. Students explore two concepts related to the explosiveness of volcanic eruptions, viscosity and the rate of degassing, by modelling the concepts with the use of simple materials. They experiment with three fluids of varying viscosities, and explore the concept of degassing as it relates to eruptions through experimentation with carbonated beverage cans. Finally, students reflect on how the scientific concepts covered in the activity connect to useful engineering applications, such as community evacuation planning and implementation, and mapping of safe living zones near volcanoes. A PowerPoint® presentation and student worksheet are provided.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Authors: Austin Blaser, Helge Gonnermann, Nathan Truong, Thomas Giachetti

What's the Conductivity of Gatorade?

Students use conductivity meters to measure various salt and water solutions, as indicated by the number of LEDs (light emitting diodes) that illuminate on the meter. Students create calibration curves using known amounts of table salt dissolved in water and their corresponding conductivity readings. Using their calibration curves, students estimate the total equivalent amount of salt contained in Gatorade (or other sports drinks and/or unknown salt solutions). This activity reinforces electrical engineering concepts, such as the relationship between electrical potential, current and resistance, as well as the typical circuitry components that represent these phenomena. The concept of conductors is extended to ions that are dissolved in solution to illustrate why electrolytic solutions support the passage of currents.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Authors: Jill Fonda, Keeshan Williams, Vikram Kapila

What's the Matter with Air?

In this activity, students investigate the mass, pressure, and temperature of air. They will measure and record the mass and temperature of a bottle of air as they increase its pressure by pumping in more air, record their observations, and answer some questions about what they have seen.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Interactive

Author: Philip Childs

When Should I Drink My Hot Chocolate?

Students act as food science engineers as they explore and apply their understanding of cooling rate and specific heat capacity by completing two separate, but interconnected, tasks. In Part 1, student groups conduct an experiment to explore the cooling rate of a cup of hot chocolate. They collect and graph data to create a mathematical model that represents the cooling rate, and use an exponential decay regression to determine how long a person should wait to drink the cup of hot chocolate at an optimal temperature. In Part 2, students investigate the specific heat capacity of the hot chocolate. They determine how much energy is needed to heat the hot chocolate to an optimal temperature after it has cooled to room temperature. Two activity-guiding worksheets are included.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: Brian Palacios

White Plains MetARs

In this activity, students use METeorological Aerodome Reports (METARs) to view changes in temperature, dew point, air pressure, sky condition, wind, and visibility at White Plains, New York. After studying the reports, they answer a series of questions related to radiation and insolation, radiative balance, and meteorological processes.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Interactive

Author: Steve Kluge

Why Does Chemistry Matter In My Life?

Why does chemistry matter in my life? These lessons address this question and are designed to be used throughout the high school course and support the North Carolina standard course of study objectives in chemistry. Each lesson presents a problem to the student that they will endeavor to answer using a variety of activities. These activities may be modified to suit the needs of your students. The problems are intended to generate student interest so they will be more likely to engage in the lesson.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Author: Lisa Hibler

Why Neutralize? Impact on Health and the Environment

The aim of this lesson is to introduce the concept of Neutralization and its application in our daily lives. Students are encouraged to construct their knowledge of Neutralization through brainstorming sessions, experiments, and mind mapping. This video lesson presents a series of stories relating to Neutralization—beginning with a story of a girl being cured from a stomach ache with the help of Neutralization. Prerequisites for this lesson are knowledge of the basic concept of Neutralization, chemical equations and the pH indicator scale. The lesson will take about 50 minutes to complete, but you may want to divide into two classes if the activities require more time.

Material Type: Lecture

Author: Hazilah Abdullah, Muhamad Jamil Mustafa

Wizardry and Chemistry

Students learn how common pop culture references (Harry Potter books) can relate to chemistry. While making and demonstrating their own low-intensity sparklers (muggle-versions of magic wands), students learn and come to appreciate the chemistry involved (reaction rates, Gibb's free energy, process chemistry and metallurgy). The fun part is that all wands are personalized and depend on how well students conduct the lab. Students end the activity with a class duel a face-off between wands of two different chemical compositions. This lab serves as a fun, engaging review for stoichiometry, thermodynamics, redox and kinetics, as well as advanced placement course review.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Authors: Eugene Chiappetta, Marc Bird

eComma — a Space for Social Reading

eComma is a social reading tool teachers can install in their Learning Management System (LMS). It allows students and teachers to read and annotate texts together, pooling their knowledge and perspectives for a deeper understanding and analysis of what they are reading. The eComma website linked here explains how to explain the tool in an LMS and has a user guide and case studies with ideas for how to use it in a class.

Material Type: Case Study, Interactive, Reading

Author: Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning (COERLL)

Iowa History: Iowa Unsung Prairie Transformation to Farms and One Room Schools 1870-1900 Part 1

Learn more about how immigrants settled Iowa by developing farms and built schools on the tall grass prairie in Iowa. Through video, primary sources, activities and text learn more about: A) Preparation for Settlement of Iowa's Treeless Tall Grass Prairie B) Promotion of Large Scale Prairie Settlement of 3/4 of Iowa

Material Type: Lesson, Module, Primary Source, Unit of Study

Authors: Denise Krefting, Sandra Host

Cuban Missile Crisis

This is a module that implores students to think from an historical perspective about the Cuban Missile Crisis and create a memo of advice for President Kennedy on which action he should take. Lesson Objectives or what you should be able to do after you have completed the module: I can understand how the Cuban Missile Crisis lead to the brink of nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. I can analyze how Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro's background led to their actions during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I can create a memo giving my advice to Kennedy in how to deal with the Cuban Missile Crisis scenarios while using 5 vocab words and referring back to 2 pieces of evidence from two of the leader's past experiences.

Material Type: Assessment, Homework/Assignment

Holocaust Museum PBL Secondary Education

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Material Type: Lesson Plan

Author: carmen bowser

Anne Frank in the World, 1929 - 1945, Teacher Workbook

This Anne Frank unit is designed with several lessons of various lengths. These lessons are usable in many different disciplines. Using one, several, or all of the lessons will address the unit's objectives to some degree. Students will accomplish some or all of the objectives depending on the number and nature of the lessons in which they participate.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan, Unit of Study

Debating the Bomb

Students will research how the development of the atomic bomb affected people in World War II, participate in a debate about the bomb's use, and investigate how it has affected people's lives since 1945.

Material Type: Diagram/Illustration, Lesson Plan