Students work to increase the intensity of a light bulb by testing batteries in series and parallel circuits. They learn about Ohm's law, power, parallel and series circuits, and ways to measure voltage and current.

The lesson begins by introducing Olympics as the unit theme. The purpose of this lesson is to introduce students to the techniques of engineering problem solving. Specific techniques covered in the lesson include brainstorming and the engineering design process. The importance of thinking out of the box is also stressed to show that while some tasks seem impossible, they can be done. This introduction includes a discussion of the engineering required to build grand, often complex, Olympic event centers.

Students use three tracks marked on the floor, one in yards, one in feet and one in inches. As they start and stop a robot specific distances on a "runway," they can easily determine the equivalent measurements in other units by looking at the nearby tracks. With this visual and physical representation of the magnitude of the units of feet, yard and inches, students gain an understanding of what is meant by "unit conversion." They also gain a familiarity with different common units of measurement. They use multiplication and division to verify their physical estimated unit conversions. Students also learn about how common and helpful it is to convert from one unit to another in everyday situations and for engineering purposes. This activity helps students make the abstract concept of unit conversion real so they develop mental models of the magnitude of units instead of applying memorized conversion factors by rote.

Explore an active area of research in optical physics: producing designer pulse shapes to achieve specific purposes, such as breaking apart a molecule. Carefully create the perfect shaped pulse to break apart a molecule by individually manipulating the colors of light that make up a pulse.

Did you ever imagine that you can use light to move a microscopic plastic bead? Explore the forces on the bead or slow time to see the interaction with the laser's electric field. Use the optical tweezers to manipulate a single strand of DNA and explore the physics of tiny molecular motors. Can you get the DNA completely straight or stop the molecular motor?

Students act as civil engineers developing safe railways as a way to strengthen their understanding of parallel and intersecting lines. Using pieces of yarn to visually represent line segments, students lay down "train tracks" on a carpeted floor, and make guesses as to whether these segments are arranged in parallel or non-parallel fashion. Students then test their tracks by running two LEGO® MINDSTORMS® NXT robots to observe the consequences of their track designs, and make safety improvements. Robots on intersecting courses face imminent collision, while robots on parallel courses travel safely.

Students are presented with a short lesson on the Coulter principle—an electronic method to detect microscopic particles and determine their concentration in fluid. Depending on the focus of study, students can investigate the industrial and medical applications of particle detection, the physics of fluid flow and electric current through the apparatus, or the chemistry of the electrolytes used in the apparatus.

Students apply concepts of disease transmission to analyze infection data, either provided or created using Bluetooth-enabled Android devices. This data collection may include several cases, such as small static groups (representing historically rural areas), several roaming students (representing world-travelers), or one large, tightly knit group (representing urban populations). To explore the algorithms to a deeper degree, students may also design their own diseases using the App Inventor framework.

Students explore their peripheral vision by reading large letters on index cards. Then they repeat the experiment while looking through camera lenses, first a lens with a smaller focal length and then a lens with a larger focal length. Then they complete a worksheet and explain how the experiment helps them solve the challenge question introduced in lesson 1 of this unit.

Through this lesson and its associated activity, students explore the role of biomedical engineers working for pharmaceutical companies. First, students gain background knowledge about what biomedical engineers do, how to become a biomedical engineer, and the steps of the engineering design process. The goal is to introduce biomedical engineering as medical problem solving as well as highlight the importance of maintaining normal body chemistry. Students participate in the research phase of the design process as it relates to improving the design of a new prescription medication. During the research phase, engineers learn about topics by reading scholarly articles written by others, and students experience this process. Students draw on their research findings to participate in discussion and draw conclusions about the impact of medications on the human body.

See how light knocks electrons off a metal target, and recreate the experiment that spawned the field of quantum mechanics.

Students explore the physics utilized by engineers in designing today's roller coasters, including potential and kinetic energy, friction, and gravity. First, students learn that all true roller coasters are completely driven by the force of gravity and that the conversion between potential and kinetic energy is essential to all roller coasters. Second, they also consider the role of friction in slowing down cars in roller coasters. Finally, they examine the acceleration of roller coaster cars as they travel around the track. During the associated activity, the students design, build, and analyze a roller coaster for marbles out of foam tubing.

In a class demonstration, the teacher places different pill types ("chalk" pill, gel pill, and gel tablet) into separate glass beakers of vinegar, representing human stomach acid. After 20-30 minutes, the pills dissolve. Students observe which dissolve the fastest, and discuss the remnants of the various pills. What they learn contributes to their ongoing objective to answer the challenge question presented in lesson 1 of this unit.

(STEM) Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics

Do you like science or math? Do you enjoy solving problems? This industry includes occupations and careers in planning, managing, and providing scientific research and professional and technical services (e.g., physical science, social science, engineering), including laboratory and testing services, and research and development services. Careers in the STEM industry involve solving problems through research and design. Nearly all of the occupations in this industry typically require a bachelor’s or higher degree for entry. But specific designations also include, for example, an associate’s degree for occupations such as social science research assistants.

Student groups use a "real" 3D coordinate system to plot points in space. Made from balsa wood or wooden dowels, the system has three axes at right angles and a plane (the XY plane) that can slide up and down the Z axis. Students are given several coordinates and asked to find these points in space. Then they find the coordinates of the eight corners of a box/cube with given dimensions.

After a brief history of plastics, students look more closely as some examples from the abundant types of plastics found in our day-to-day lives. They are introduced to the mechanical properties of plastics, including their stress-strain relationships, which determine their suitability for different industrial and product applications. These physical properties enable plastics to be fabricated into a wide range of products. Students learn about the different roles that plastics play in our lives, Young's modulus, and the effects that plastics have on our environment. Then students act as industrial engineers, conducting tests to compare different plastics and performing a cost-benefit analysis to determine which are the most cost-effective for a given application, based on their costs and measured physical properties.

Students investigate the accuracy of sundials and the discrepancy that lies between "real time" and "clock time." They track the position of the sun during the course of a relatively short period of time as they make a shadow plot, a horizontal sundial, and a diptych sundial. (The activity may be abridged to include only one or two of the different sundials, instead of all three.)

Students apply what they have learned about the engineering design process to a real-life problem that affects them and/or their school. They chose a problem as a group, and then follow the engineering design process to come up with and test their design solution. This activity teaches students how to use the engineering design process while improving something in the school environment that matters to them. By performing each step of the design process, students can experience what it is like to be an engineer.

Building on their understanding of graphs, students are introduced to random processes on networks. They walk through an illustrative example to see how a random process can be used to represent the spread of an infectious disease, such as the flu, on a social network of students. This demonstrates how scientists and engineers use mathematics to model and simulate random processes on complex networks. Topics covered include random processes and modeling disease spread, specifically the SIR (susceptible, infectious, resistant) model.

In computer science, program analysis is used to determine the behavior of computer programs. Flow charts are an important tool for understanding how programs work by tracing control flow. Control flow is a graphical representation of the logic present in the program. In this lesson, students learn about, design and create flow charts for different scenarios, including a game based on the Battleship® created by Hasbro©. In the associated activity, Flow Charting App Inventor, students apply their knowledge from this lesson and gain experience with a software application called App Inventor. This lesson and its associated activity can be stand-alone or used as a launching point for the Android Acceleration Application unit or any lesson involving App Inventor.