We all know that it takes energy to provide us with the basics of shelter: heating, cooling, lighting, electricity, sanitation and cooking. To create energy-efficient housing that is practical for people to use every day requires combining many smaller systems that each perform a function well, and making smart decisions about the sources of power we use. Through five lessons on the topics of heat transfer, circuits, daylighting, electricity from renewable energy sources, and passive solar design, students learn about the science, math and engineering that go into designing energy-efficient components of smart housing that is environmentally friendly. Through numerous design/build/analyze activities, students create a solar water heater, swamp cooler, thermostat, model houses for testing, model greenhouse, and wind and water turbine prototypes. It is best if students are concurrently taking Algebra 1 in order to complete some of the worksheets.

Students follow the steps of the engineering design process (EDP) while learning about assistive devices and biomedical engineering. They first go through a design-build-test activity to learn the steps of the cyclical engineering design process. Then, during the three main activities (7 x 55 minutes each) student teams are given a fictional client statement and follow the EDP steps to design products an off-road wheelchair, a portable wheelchair ramp, and an automatic floor sweeper computer program. Students brainstorm ideas, identify suitable materials and demonstrate different methods of representing solutions to their design problems scale drawings or programming descriptions, and simple models or classroom prototypes.

This unit covers the broad spectrum of topics that make-up our very amazing human body. Students are introduced to the space environment and learn the major differences between the environment on Earth and that of outer space. The engineering challenges that arise because of these discrepancies are also discussed. Then, students dive into the different components that make up the human body: muscles, bones and joints, the digestive and circulatory systems, the nervous and endocrine systems, the urinary system, the respiratory system, and finally the immune system. Students learn about the different types of muscles in the human body and the effects of microgravity on muscles. Also, they learn about the skeleton, the number of and types of bones in the body, and how outer space affects astronauts' bones. In the lessons on the digestive, circulatory, nervous and endocrine systems, students learn how these vital system work and the challenges faced by astronauts whose systems are impacted by spaceflight. And lastly, advances in engineering technology are discussed through the lessons on the urinary, respiratory and immune systems while students learn how these systems work with all the other body components to help keep the human body healthy.

Part of a materials science engineering course, a project through which students investigate the future of solar electricity by creating prototypes of solar cells. Students complete exercises in "project planning, analysis, design, optimization, demonstration, reporting and team building."

Students learn about the wonderful and fascinating country of China, and its environmental challenges that require engineering solutions, many in the form of increased energy efficiency, the incorporation of renewable energy, and new engineering developments for urban and rural areas. China is fast becoming an extremely influential factor in our world today, and will likely have a large role in shaping the decades ahead. China is the world's largest energy consumer and the largest producer of carbon dioxide emissions, leading engineers and scientists to be concerned about the role these emissions play in rural and urban public and environmental health, as well as in global climate change. Through exploring some sources of air pollution, appropriate housing for different climate zones, and the types of renewable energy, the lessons and activities of this unit present ways that engineers are helping people in China, using an approach to cleaner, smarter, healthier and more-efficient ways of living that apply to people wherever they live.

In this unit, students explore the various roles of environmental engineers, including: environmental cleanup, water quality, groundwater resources, surface water and groundwater flow, water contamination, waste disposal and air pollution. Specifically, students learn about the factors that affect water quality and the conditions that enable different animals and plants to survive in their environments. Next, students learn about groundwater and how environmental engineers study groundwater to predict the distribution of surface pollution. Students also learn how water flows through the ground, what an aquifer is and what soil properties are used to predict groundwater flow. Additionally, students discover that the water they drink everyday comes from many different sources, including surface water and groundwater. They investigate possible scenarios of drinking water contamination and how contaminants can negatively affect the organisms that come in contact with them. Students learn about the three most common methods of waste disposal and how environmental engineers continue to develop technologies to dispose of trash. Lastly, students learn what causes air pollution and how to investigate the different pollutants that exist, such as toxic gases and particulate matter. Also, they investigate the technologies developed by engineers to reduce air pollution.

Students are introduced to the fundamentals of environmental engineering as well as the global air, land and water quality concerns facing today's environmental engineers. After a lesson and activity to introduce environmental engineering, students learn more about water chemistry aspects of environmental engineering. Specifically, they focus on groundwater contamination and remediation, including sources of contamination, adverse health effects of contaminated drinking water, and current and new remediation techniques. Several lab activities provide hands-on experiences with topics relevant to environmental engineering concerns and technologies, including removal efficiencies of activated carbon in water filtration, measuring pH, chromatography as a physical separation method, density and miscibility.

Identifying the relationship between humans and the environment can be emphasized with these resources.

Simple machines are devices with few or no moving parts that make work easier, and which people have used to provide mechanical advantage for thousands of years. Students learn about the wedge, wheel and axle, lever, inclined plane, screw and pulley in the context of the construction of a pyramid, gaining insights into tools that have been used since ancient times and are still important today. Through numerous hands-on activities, students imagine themselves as ancient engineers building a pyramid. Student teams evaluate and select a construction site, design a pyramid, perform materials calculations, test a variety of cutting wedges on different materials, design a small-scale cart/lever transport system to convey building materials, experiment with the angle of inclination and pull force on an inclined plane, see how a pulley can change the direction of force, and learn the differences between fixed, movable and combined pulleys. While learning the steps of the engineering design process, students practice teamwork, creativity and problem solving.

Students learn about energy, kinetic energy, potential energy, and energy transfer through a series of three lessons and three activities. They learn that energy can be neither created nor destroyed and that relationships exist between a moving object's mass and velocity. The associated activities give students hands-on experience with examples of potential-to-kinetic energy transfers. The activities also provide ways for students to apply the core concepts of energy through engineering practices such as building and testing prototypes to meet design criteria, planning and carrying out investigations, collecting and interpreting data, optimizing a system design, and collaborating with other research groups. The fundamental concepts presented in this unit serve as a good foundation for future lessons on energy technologies and electricity production.

Students explore the methods engineers have devised for harnessing sunlight to generate power. First, they investigate heat transfer and heat storage through the construction, testing and use of a solar oven. With a lesson focused on photovoltaic cells, students learn the concepts of energy conversion, conservation of energy, current and voltage. By constructing model solar powered cars, students see these conceptual ideas manifested in modern technology. Furthermore, the solar car project provides opportunities to explore a number of other topics, such as gear ratios and simple mechanics. Both of these design and construction projects are examples of engineering design.

A university-level course that examines the atmospheres and interiors of extrasolar planets, or exoplanets. The course also looks at the search for planets that could support life. Includes lecture notes and assignments.

This financial literacy content package is a collection of educator-curated instructional materials to support the planning and money management strand of the Ohio Financial Literacy Learning Standards for the middle grades 7-8. Click View Resource to explore the package or Remix to make a copy for your own use. 

This is a full 18-week curriculum organized by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. The resources, lessons and activities in this guide are aligned with Ohio’s high school Model Financial Literacy Curriculum. The guide covers 18 weeks (1 semester) and is divided into 3-week long units for each of the six topics. Each topic’s content statements have been sequenced so that new subject matter builds on concepts already covered. Learning expectations are found under each day's lesson selection.

This guide contains resources drawn primarily from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis’s Econ Lowdown® economic education website, with additional material from the Cleveland Fed and other Federal Reserve System websites, and from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). Multiple resources are provided for teaching each content statement to allow for more choice when tailoring lesson plans.

Students are introduced to the important concept of density with a focus is on the more easily understood densities of solids. Students use different methods to determine the densities of solid objects, including water displacement to determine volumes of irregularly-shaped objects. By comparing densities of various solids to the density of water, and by considering the behavior of different solids when placed in water, students conclude that ordinarily, objects with densities greater than water sink, while those with densities less than water float. Then they explore the principle of buoyancy, and through further experimentation arrive at Archimedes' principle that a floating object displaces a mass of water equal to its own mass. Students may be surprised to discover that a floating object displaces more water than a sinking object of the same volume.

Students are presented with an engineering challenge that asks them to develop a material and model that can be used to test the properties of aortic valves without using real specimens. Developing material that is similar to human heart valves makes testing easier for biomedical engineers because they can test new devices or ideas on the model valve instead of real heart valves, which can be difficult to obtain for research. To meet the challenge, students are presented with a variety of background information, are asked to research the topic to learn more specific information pertaining to the challenge, and design and build a (prototype) product. After students test their products and make modifications as needed, they convey background and product information in the form of portfolios and presentations to the potential buyer.

In the first of two lessons of this curricular unit, students are introduced to the concept of friction as a force that impedes motion when two surfaces are in contact. Student teams use spring scales to drag objects, such as a ceramic coffee cup, along a table top or the floor, measuring the frictional force that exists between the moving object and the surface it slides on. By modifying the bottom surface of the object, students find out what kinds of surfaces generate more or less friction. They also discover that both static and kinetic friction are involved when an object initially at rest is caused to slide across a surface. In the second lesson of the unit, students design and conduct experiments to determine the effects of weight and surface area on friction. They discover that weight affects normal friction (the friction that results from surface roughness), but for very smooth surfaces, the friction due to molecular attraction is affected by contact area.

This eight-week module focuses on a “science and society” topic, engaging students in reading compelling informational text about adolescent brain development and the effects of entertainment screen time on the brain.

In Unit 1, students first read various texts that will build their background knowledge about adolescent brain development in general. Their learning will center around three areas of the brain, namely the prefrontal cortex, the limbic system, and the developing neurons. Students determine main ideas and evidence in diverse media and clarify their learning about this complex content. Then they begin to focus on the issue of screen time and how it may affect teenagers.

Find the rest of the EngageNY ELA resources at https://archive.org/details/engageny-ela-archive .

In order to assist educators with the implementation of the Common Core, the New York State Education Department provides curricular modules in P-12 English Language Arts and Mathematics that schools and districts can adopt or adapt for local purposes. The full year of Grade 7 Mathematics curriculum is available from the module links.

Find the rest of the EngageNY ELA resources at https://archive.org/details/engageny-ela-archive .