Silicosis, a deadly lung disease caused when workers inhale fine particles of silica dust—a mineral found in sand, quartz, and granite—became a national cause célèbre during the Great Depression when it was recognized as a significant disease among lead, zinc, and silver miners, sandblasters, and foundry and tunnel workers. In 1938 the federal government declared silicosis America's number one industrial health problem and Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins convened a National Silicosis Conference in Washington, D.C. Despite such attempts to deal with the silicosis crisis, workers continued to complain of their plight. Hundreds of letters were sent to federal officials from across the country. The three letters included here (sent to Secretary Perkins) attested to workers' desperation and to their confidence that the government would agree to investigate.

Build your own system of heavenly bodies and watch the gravitational ballet. With this orbit simulator, you can set initial positions, velocities, and masses of 2, 3, or 4 bodies, and then see them orbit each other.

The Native American Veterans Tribute is a slideshow project in Native American Literature class that corresponds with the Veterans Day Assembly at our high school. Veterans who are invited to the assembly are served breakfast and watch the slideshow in the Commons. Our class slideshow is incorporated into the presentation that day. It allows students to recognize relatives or or other Native military veterans and pay tribute to them.

This class examines the relationship between the study of natural history, both domestic and exotic, by Europeans and Americans, and exploration and exploitation of the natural world, focusing on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

This class examines the relationship between the study of natural history, both domestic and exotic, by Europeans and Americans, and exploration and exploitation of the natural world, focusing on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Many artists working in the decades after the American Revolution came from the ranks of artisans and mechanics. In a republic that dispensed with aristocratic patrons and royal academies, art came to be supported by a middling populace more interested in portraits than grand history painting. Sculpture in marble, time consuming and expensive, was even more remote than paints, and the new nation lacked grand palaces or mansions for display. John Frazee, born in Rahway, New Jersey in 1790, lacked the benefit of formal instruction but still progressed from carving lettering on gravestones to fashioning busts of the rich and famous. Without formal knowledge or the constraints of European customs, American-born and trained artist-artisans such as Frazee resorted to indigenous and ingenious solutions to the problems they faced in a commercializing society, such as Frazee's mechanical invention to transfer an image from painting to a marble bust.

Produce light by bombarding atoms with electrons. See how the characteristic spectra of different elements are produced, and configure your own element's energy states to produce light of different colors.

This course explores the social relevance of neuroscience, considering how emerging areas of brain research at once reflect and reshape social attitudes and agendas. Topics include brain imaging and popular media; neuroscience of empathy, trust, and moral reasoning; new fields of neuroeconomics and neuromarketing; ethical implications of neurotechnologies such as cognitive enhancement pharmaceuticals; neuroscience in the courtroom; and neuroscientific recasting of social problems such as addiction and violence. Guest lectures by neuroscientists, class discussion, and weekly readings in neuroscience, popular media, and science studies.

In this hands-on activity, students examine how the orientation of a photovoltaic (PV) panel -- relative to the position of the sun -- affects the energy-efficiency of the panel.

The human cost of World War I was enormous. The prolonged trench warfare ended the lives of 1.8 million Germans, 1.7 million Russians, 1.4 million French, 1.2 million Austro-Hungarians, and over 900,000 British. 112,000 American troops also died, mostly from disease. Many of those who didn't die were left with horrible wounds. Here, plaster casts of the mutilated faces of soldiers wounded in battle are shown next to their reconstructions, carried out with the aid of new prosthetic devices. They represent one legacy of the First World War and the imperfect attempts to contend with its gruesome effects.

Students use miniature explosives to analyze actions and reactions. An Alka-seltzer tablet is sealed in a small film canister with water which sets up a pressure explosion pushing the canister one direction and an adjacent film canister in the opposite direction. Students repeat this set up but vary the mass of the second canister by adding sand. The distances that each canister travels is measured, recorded and later analyzed and discussed.

This activity is a field investigation where students design and test a gravity ball launcher, record their observations, and share their findings in the large group setting.

This lesson focuses on the importance of ocean exploration as a way to learn how to capture, control, and distribute renewable ocean energy resources. Students begin by identifying ways the ocean can generate energy and then research one ocean energy source using the Internet. Finally, students build a Micro-Hydro Electric Generator.

See how the equation form of Ohm's law relates to a simple circuit. Adjust the voltage and resistance, and see the current change according to Ohm's law. The sizes of the symbols in the equation change to match the circuit diagram.

This math meets ecology lesson provides hands-on experiences with mixing oil and water, provides surface area information about the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and gives learners opportunities to estimate small oil spills of their own making. This lesson guide includes questions for learners, assessment options, extensions, and reflection questions.

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.

How can a bike help us travel through time?

When bikes became available to more people in the late 1800s, they offered a way of getting around for lots of people who couldn’t afford a horse. While cars have grown in popularity over the years, bikes continue to be used for recreation, sport, and travel. What’s more, bicycle production has put Wisconsin on the map.

This episode is part of The Look Back, a series made for learners in grades 4-6 that explores eras from Wisconsin’s history through artifacts. The collection is hosted by historians who model an inquiry process: sharing artifacts, asking questions, visiting archives and museums to learn more, telling the story of their findings as they go, and making connections to our lives today.

This course teaches the fundamentals of engineering operating systems. The following topics are studied in detail: virtual memory, kernel and user mode, system calls, threads, context switches, interrupts, interprocess communication, coordination of concurrent activities, and the interface between software and hardware. Most importantly, the interactions between these concepts are examined. The course is divided into two blocks; the first block introduces one operating system, UNIXĺ¨ v6, in detail. The second block of lectures covers important operating systems concepts invented after UNIXĺ¨ v6, which was introduced in 1976.

This interactive diagram from the National Academy of Sciences shows how we rely on a variety of primary energy sources (solar, nuclear, hydro, wind, geothermal, natural gas, coal, biomass, oil) to supply energy to four end-use sectors (residential, commercial, industrial, and transportation). It also focuses on lost or degraded energy.

Michael Yantsos contracted AIDS through intravenous drug use while in prison in 1983. Yantsos was one of thousands who became infected before information about the disease or adequate treatment was available. As a result, Yantsos, like most Americans, knew next to nothing about the disease when AIDS struck during the early 1980's. Many associated the disease with gay men, who were its first victims, but the epidemic soon spread to other populations – first to intravenous drug users, and then to heterosexuals. Reagan era cuts in drug treatment programs and the "war" on drugs that pushed thousands of addicts into prison also contributed to the disease's spread.