Structure and Parts of a Tree
(View Complete Item Description)This technology education lesson will introduce the students to trees, its structure and parts.
Material Type: Lesson
2. Explore
Biomes and Population Dynamics - Balance within Natural Systems
(View Complete Item Description)With a continued focus on the Sonoran Desert, students are introduced to the concepts of biomes, limiting factors (resources), carrying capacity and growth curves through a PowerPoint® presentation. Abiotic factors (temperature, annual precipitation, seasons, etc.) determine the biome landscape. The vegetative component, as producers, determines the types of consumers that form its various communities. Students learn how the type and quantity of available resources defines how many organisms can be supported within the community, as well as its particular resident species. Students use mathematical models of natural relationships (in this case, sigmoid and exponential growth curves) to analyze population information and build upon it. With this understanding, students are able to explain how carrying capacity is determined by the limiting factors within the community and feeding relationships. By studying these ecological relationships, students see the connection between ecological relationships of organisms and the fundamentals of engineering design, adding to their base of knowledge towards solving the grand challenge posed in this unit.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
Technology and Nature in American History, Spring 2008
(View Complete Item Description)Subject considers how the visual and material world of "nature" has been reshaped by industrial practices, beliefs, structures, and activities. Readings in historical geography, aesthetics, American history, environmental and ecological history, architecture, city planning, and landscape studies. Several field trips planned to visit local industrial landscapes. Assignments involve weekly short, written responses to the readings, and discussion-leading. Final project is a photo-essay on the student's choice of industrial site (photographic experience not necessary).
Material Type: Full Course
Biomimicry: Echolocation in Robotics
(View Complete Item Description)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.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
Build a Birdhouse
(View Complete Item Description)Students construct bird nests and birdhouses. They research birds of their choosing and then design houses that meet the birds' specific needs. It works well to conduct this activity in conjunction with a grades 9-12 woodshop class by partnering the older students with the younger students (but it is not required to do this in order to conduct the activity).
Material Type: Activity/Lab
Engineers Speak for the Trees
(View Complete Item Description)Students begin by reading Dr. Seuss' "The Lorax" as an example of how overdevelopment can cause long-lasting environmental destruction. Students discuss how to balance the needs of the environment with the needs of human industry. Student teams are asked to serve as natural resource engineers, city planning engineers and civil engineers with the task to replant the nearly destroyed forest and develop a sustainable community design that can co-exist with the re-established natural area.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
Life Cycles
(View Complete Item Description)In this lesson, students will extend their knowledge of matter and energy cycles in an organism to engineering life cycle assessment of a product. Students will learn about product life cycle assessment and the flow of energy through the cycle, comparing it to the flow of nutrients and energy in the life cycle of an organism.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
Biorecycling: Using Nature to Make Resources from Waste
(View Complete Item Description)By studying key processes in the carbon cycle, such as photosynthesis, composting and anaerobic digestion, students learn how nature and engineers "biorecycle" carbon. Students are exposed to examples of how microbes play many roles in various systems to recycle organic materials and also learn how the carbon cycle can be used to make or release energy.
Material Type: Lesson Plan