This course uses the basic principles of biology and earth science as a context for understanding environmental policies and resource management practices. Our planet is facing unprecedented environmental challenges, from oil spills to global climate change. In ENSC 1000, you will learn about the science behind these problems; preparing you to make an informed, invaluable contribution to Earth’s future. I hope that each of you is engaged by the material presented and participates fully in the search for, acquisition of, and sharing of information within our class.

Students are given an engineering challenge: A nearby hospital has just installed a new magnetic resonance imaging facility that has the capacity to make 3D images of the brain and other body parts by exposing patients to a strong magnetic field. The hospital wishes for its entire staff to have a clear understanding of the risks involved in working near a strong magnetic field and a basic understanding of why those risks occur. Your task is to develop a presentation or pamphlet explaining the risks, the physics behind those risks, and the safety precautions to be taken by all staff members. This 10-lesson/4-activity unit was designed to provide hands-on activities to teach end-of-year electricity and magnetism topics to a first-year accelerated or AP physics class. Students learn about and then apply the following science concepts to solve the challenge: magnetic force, magnetic moments and torque, the Biot-Savart law, Ampere's law and Faraday's law. This module is built around the Legacy Cycle, a format that incorporates findings from educational research on how people best learn.

In this lesson the students will observe and record properties of rocks based on properties such as size, weight, shape, color or texture.

Isotopic Pennies is an activity where students use what they have learned about isotopes and weighted averages to solve a new challenge.

Students learn about physical models of groundwater and how environmental engineers determine possible sites for drinking water wells. During the activity, students create their own groundwater well models using coffee cans and wire screening. They add red food coloring to their models to see how pollutants can migrate through the groundwater into a drinking water resource.

Middle school students are naturally fascinated by the world of forensic science, crime scene investigation, law, and criminal justice. This curriculum unit is designed to spark their interests and provide meaningful real-world connections to the standards they are learning in general science, with a particular focus on the application of properties of matter to the field of forensic science. Forensic science is based upon the recognition, identification, and evaluation of physical evidence, so it is the perfect theme for engaging students in the content of properties of matter. Students will develop a strong understanding of how physical and chemical properties can be used to identify crime scene evidence, as well as separate and analyze the components of mixtures. Furthermore, they will begin to develop their knowledge of atoms, elements, and compounds. This unit is packed with hands-on activities that allow students to: explore matter using scientific tools and techniques, apply the scientific method to new questions, use creative thinking and problem-solving skills to analyze crime scenes, and create arguments that are supported by evidence. Students will know from day one why it matters to understand matter!

This is a lesson about the technology as it relates to heat transfer (conduction and convection)on the International Space Station. Learners will investigate how to build a space suit that keeps astronauts cool. This is technology activity 1 of 2 found in the ISS L.A.B.S. Educator Resource Guide.

Students use media resources and an in-class investigation to explore the types of energy within different types of systems. They also use the formulas for kinetic and potential energy to examine the path of a projectile.

Explore the movement of gases, liquids and solids at a molecular level, and investigate how temperature and intermolecular attractions affect phase changes.

This guided inquiry activity, in which ice is used to boil water in a Florence flask, works well in the introductory class to a chemistry or physical science course. The students will learn the difference between observation and inference and apply this understanding to various other situations in which observations and inferences must be made. The students will also use outside sources to try to explain why the activity worked.

See how there's actually constructive (rather than just destructive) interference at some points on the screen. Created by David SantoPietro.

This is a lesson about crystal growth. Leaners will grow a sugar crystal and learn how this relates to growing protein crystals in space. The lack of gravity allows scientists on the space station to grow big, almost perfect crystals, which are used to help design new medicines. This is science activity 2 of 2 found in the ISS L.A.B.S. Educator Resource Guide.

This is an online lesson which introduces the concept of astronomical filters and their connections to imaging different objects in space. Learners will explore perceptions of images as seen using different colors of light, construct a filter wheel, and practice investigating various astronomical images using the filter wheel. This material was designed to highlight how filters are useful to astronomers and show how a real astronomical telescope uses filters to image the Sun.

This assignment allows students to utilize real soil data/information presented online to learn how the some of the physical properties of the soil influence the chemistry of the soil and health of the ecosystem.

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In this demonstration, evidence of the Earth's rotation is observed. A tripod, swiveling desk chair, fishing line and pendulum bob (e.g., fishing weight or plumb bob) are required for the demonstration. This resource is from PUMAS - Practical Uses of Math and Science - a collection of brief examples created by scientists and engineers showing how math and science topics taught in K-12 classes have real world applications.

This lesson has students create a hands-on model that accurately explains seasonal changes on Earth and develop knowledge of the Sun-Earth system.

This is a book about numerically solving partial differential equations occurring in technical and physical contexts and the authors have set themselves a more ambitious target than to just talk about the numerics. Their aim is to show the place of numerical solutions in the general modeling process and this must inevitably lead to considerations about modeling itself. Partial differential equations usually are a consequence of applying first principles to a technical or physical problem at hand. That means, that most of the time the physics also have to be taken into account especially for validation of the numerical solution obtained. This book aims especially at engineers and scientists who have ’real world’ problems. It will concern itself less with pesky mathematical detail. For the interested reader though, we have included sections on mathematical theory to provide the necessary mathematical background. Since this treatment had to be on the superficial side we have provided further reference to the literature where necessary.