Students use ultrasonic sensors and LEGO© MINDSTORMS© NXT robots to emulate how bats use echolocation to detect obstacles. They measure the robot's reaction times as it senses objects at two distances and with different sensor threshold values, and again after making adjustments to optimize its effectiveness. Like engineers, they gather and graph data to analyze a given design (from the tutorial) and make modifications to the sensor placement and/or threshold values in order to improve the robot's performance (iterative design). Students see how problem solving with biomimicry design is directly related to understanding and making observations of nature.

This is a long-term inquiry activity in which students investigate locations they believe harbor cellulose-digesting microbes, collect samples, isolate them on selective media, and screen them for cellulase activity. These novel microbes may be useful for the production of cellulosic ethanol. In the process they learn about plating techniques, serial dilutions, symbiotic relationships and enzyme specificity. Two methods are provided, one focusing on isolation of pure microbial strains, the other focusing on finding symbiotic communities of microbes. The companion activity is here: https://www.glbrc.org/outreach/educational-materials/bioprospecting-cellulose-degrading-microbes-filter-paper-assay

Teachers can use this lesson to have students investigate how bacteria are important in cleaning up the environment, as well as all of the roles that bacteria play in maintaining a healthy body or ecosystem.

This lesson begins with a demonstration prompting students to consider how current generates a magnetic field and the direction of the field that is generated. Through formal lecture, students learn Biot-Savart's law in order to calculate, most simply, the magnetic field produced in the center of a circular current carrying loop. For applications, students find it is necessary to integrate the field produced over all small segments in an actual current carrying wire.

This activity is an introduction to the study of birds. Students will gain observation and classification skills.

This task asks students to glean contextual information about bird eggs from a collection of measurements of said eggs organized in a scatter plot. In particular, students are asked to identify a correlation and use it to make interpolative predictions, and reason about the properties of specific eggs via the graphical presentation of the data.

This activity is a field investigation of the bird population in the schoolyard and how the students will plan to attract more birds.

In this activity, students distinguish between directly and indirectly transmitted diseases and participate in a group game to simulate the spread of vector-borne diseases. They then research a particular pathogenic disease to learn how global warming and biodiversity loss can affect disease transmission.

This task provides the most famous construction to bisect a given angle. It applies when the angle is not 180 degrees.

This video describes what black carbon is, where is comes from, and how it contributes to sea ice melt and global warming.

Fun assignment for the week of Black Friday. Students research the best prices and learn a little about the history of Black Friday.

In this series of activities students investigate the effects of black carbon on snow and ice melt in the Arctic. The lesson begins with an activity that introduces students to the concept of thermal energy and how light and dark surfaces reflect and absorb radiant energy differently. To help quantify the relationship between carbon and ice melt, the wet lab activity has students create ice samples both with and without black carbon and then compare how they respond to radiant energy while considering implications for the Arctic.

A webquest is a classroom or virtual-based lesson where most of the information students explore is from different locations on the internet.

Students will discover contributions of Black inventors and pioneers in the field of energy efficiency and the assets they possessed that helped them overcome challenges. ABOUT THIS WEBQUEST: Built around the themes of Black Leaders in Energy, Representation, & Climate Change 5E lesson format: Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, EvaluateEach “E” can be used as an independent lesson or all five can be completed as a unit (Each “E” takes 1-2 class periods to complete)Requires collaboration/discussion with peers and as a whole classCan be embedded in Energy or Climate curriculum or used as stand-alone lesson/sCan be modified to meet the needs of your students Recommended for grades 7-12This lesson requires use of the internet.Use this slideshow with the Black Leaders in Energy Webquest Activity Sheet.If students are utilizing a digital copy of the activity sheet, all links provided are active.If students are utilizing a paper copy of the activity sheet, please share a copy of the slideshow with them so they have easy access to links needed for the webquest.Remix this resource to have a version you can edit to meet your needs.This resource was developed by KEEP—Wisconsin's K-12 Energy Education Program. 

Students read news reports and first-person accounts to imagine what it would be like to be in a blackout in a large city. They follow news reports as if the event were unfolding in real-time and keep weblogs or journals of their experience as they imagine it, taking on different roles of people who live in the city or commute there to work. They use their journal accounts to create a play or screenplay that depicts what the August 2003 blackout was like for the people in the U.S. and Canada who experienced it. Although this activity is geared towards fifth-grade and older students, it could be easily adapted for younger students.

Rockets need a lot of thrust to get into space. In this lesson, students learn how rocket thrust is generated with propellant. The two types of propellants are discussed and relation to their use on rockets is investigated. Students learn why engineers need to know the different properties of propellants.

Students are introduced to our Sun as they explore its composition, what is happening inside it, its relationship to our planet (our energy source), and the ways engineers help us learn about it.

In this task, output is given from a computer-generated simulation, generating size-100 samples of data from an assumed school population of 2000 students under hypotheses about the true distribution of yes/no voters.

Students will make a proportional model of blood out of red gelatin, a plastic bag, and rice. They will learn about the different components that make up blood and will investigate what happens when the arteries and veins experience buildup from cholesterol. They will then work in pairs to brainstorm ways to clean our clogged arteries.

In this activity, students develop an understanding of the relationship between natural phenomena, weather, and climate change: the study known as phenology. In addition, they learn how cultural events are tied to the timing of seasonal events. Students brainstorm annual natural phenomena that are tied to seasonal weather changes. Next, they receive information regarding the Japanese springtime festival of Hanami, celebrating the appearance of cherry blossoms. Students plot and interpret average bloom date data from over the past 1100 years.