I use an "engaging question" on the first day of class in all of my courses. This activity is designed to be both engaging and central to all of the course content. That is, the activity is designed around questions that we can keep coming back to, over and over, after each learning unit. This approach not only provides a unifying focus for the course, but it also provides an opportunity to model critical thinking as we revisit the question each time with a different perspective. For the Dynamic Earth and Global Change (the Physical Geology course at Macalester) I chose a question about climate change. The activity starts with two graphs (plots of surface temperature and atmosphere CO2 composition for the past 1,000 years). Students are asked to describe the graphs, interpret the graphs, make some predictions, and explain the graphs using basic earth science processes.

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This collection of STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) interactive resources is a practical guide that teachers will find useful in helping students achieve curriculum expectations in STEM related courses, build their understanding of science and their ability to engage in science talk, offer explanations about natural phenomena, and develop digital literacy and a sense of global citizenship. The guide also provides instructional design considerations for developing active learning activities, pedagogical strategies, and sample activities.

Products and equipment all around us are made of materials: look around you and you will see phones, computers, cars, and buildings. We face challenges in securing the supply of materials and the impact this has on the planet. Innovative product design can help us find solutions to these challenges. This course will explore new ways of designing products.

The design of products is an important aspect of a circular economy. The circular economy approach addresses material supply challenges by keeping materials in use much longer and eventually returning materials for new use. The principle is that waste must be minimized. Products will be designed to last longer. They will be easier to Reuse, Repair, and Remanufacture. The product will eventually be broken down and Recycled. This is Design for R and is the focus of this course.

Experts from leading European universities and research organizations will explain the latest strategies in product design. Current design approaches lead to waste, loss of value and loss of resources. You will learn about the innovative ways in which companies are creating value, whilst securing their supply chains, by integrating Design for R.

This course is suitable for all learners who have an interest in product design, innovative engineering, new business activity, entrepreneurship, sustainability, circular economy and everyone who thinks that the current way we do things today needs a radical rethink.

This intensive micro-subject provides the necessary skills in Microsoft® Excel spreadsheet modeling for ESD.71 Engineering Systems Analysis for Design. Its purpose is to bring entering students up to speed on some of the advanced techniques that we routinely use in analysis. It is motivated by our experience that many students only have an introductory knowledge of Excel, and thus waste a lot of time thrashing about unproductively. Many people think they know Excel, but overlook many efficient tools, such as Data Table and Goal Seek. It is also useful for a variety of other subjects.

Engineering: Electrical Fundamentals Syllabus

Engineering 202: Electrical Fundamentals II

Course Description: Topics covered in this course include: AC and 2nd order transient analysis,
sinusoids and phasors, sinusoidal steady-state analysis, nodal analysis, branch analysis, source
transformations, Thevenin's and Norton's equivalent circuits, sinusoidal steady-state power calculation,
and balanced three-phase circuits.

Course Outcomes
Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
1. Be able to apply Kirchoff's Laws to successfully analyze an AC circuit with both independent and
dependent sources. Be able to check your results for self-consistency.
2. Be able to apply Node-Voltage and Mesh-Current techniques to successfully analyze an AC
circuit with both independent and dependent sources. Op amp and equivalent circuits are a
natural extension of this understanding.
3. Be able to use appropriate tools to describe power use in an AC circuit and distinguish between
real and reactive power.
4. Be able to determine line and phase currents and voltages for any balanced configuration of 3
phase power.
5. Be able to predict the frequency dependent behavior of simple filter through the use of Bode
plots. Demonstrate an understanding of the implications of the Bode plot for the actual behavior
of the circuit

Under the "The Science Behind Harry Potter" theme, a succession of diverse complex scientific topics are presented to students through direct immersive interaction. Student interest is piqued by the incorporation of popular culture into the classroom via a series of interactive, hands-on Harry Potter/movie-themed lessons and activities. They learn about the basics of acid/base chemistry (invisible ink), genetics and trait prediction (parseltongue trait in families), and force and projectile motion (motion of the thrown remembrall). In each lesson and activity, students are also made aware of the engineering connections to these fields of scientific study.

Engineering systems design must have the flexibility to take advantage of new opportunities while avoiding disasters. This subject develops “real options” analysis to create design flexibility and measure its value so that it can be incorporated into system optimization. It builds on essential concepts of system models, decision analysis, and financial concepts. Emphasis is placed on calculating value of real options with special attention given to efficient analysis and practical applications. The material is organized and presented to deal with the contextual reality of technological systems, that substantially distinguishes the analysis of real options in engineering systems from that of financial options.
Note
This MIT OpenCourseWare site is based on the materials from Professor de Neufville’s ESD.71 Web site. Additional materials, updated as needed by Professor de Neufville, can be found there.

Lagrangian and Bond Graph Methods

Short Description:
This open education resource presents effective system modelling methods, including Lagrangian and bond graph, and the application of a relevant engineering software tool, 20-sim. The content is designed for engineering students and professionals in the field to support their understanding and application of these methods for modelling, simulation, and design of engineering systems. The text also includes videos showing selected worked-out examples.

Long Description:
This textbook emphasizes the fundamentals of modelling methods—including Lagrangian and bond graph—and introduces a software tool for modelling and simulation to support the design of common engineering systems. This approach minimizes the time-consuming effort of manipulating and extracting system equations and writing computer code for integrating and finding their solution. We believe that our approach helps both students and professionals currently working in the field to become more productive engineers. Videos of selected worked-out examples help the reader understand the topic and applications for real-world engineering systems. This book comprises of 11 chapters.

Word Count: 41611

ISBN: 978-1-990132-09-4

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In this lesson, students will finish Much Ado About Nothing and see whether their predictions for how things end are correct. They will also complete their Character Chart and weigh in on what they think the topic and the theme of the play are.

In this lesson, students will begin reading Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing aloud in class and make predictions based on what they’ve learned so far. For homework, they will finish their sonnet’s final couplet.

In this lesson, students will learn more about the characters and the plot of Much Ado About Nothing and consider the role of leadership. They will also analyze what they’ve read so far and make predictions about the fates of the play’s characters.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"When scientists want to understand microbial populations, they turn to metagenomics. The standard technique, shotgun metagenomics, produces nearly complete genomes, enabling researchers to predict traits within a species. Unfortunately, this method applies to broad populations, making it difficult to precisely link metabolic traits to individual species. Sequencing single cells addresses this shortcoming, but the information provided is often incomplete. Now, researchers have developed a way to target smaller populations for metagenomic sequencing. Before sequencing, the researchers added a critical sorting step using hybridization chain reaction fluorescence in-situ hybridization (HCR-FISH). Isolating a population of interest before the sorted cells were used for shotgun sequencing. The result was a more complete genome of a targeted species with low diversity. The technique provided the team enough precision to analyze metabolic features of bacteria sparsely found feeding on decaying diatom algae..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

Long Description:
Students survey the legal issues confronted by entrepreneurs and develop the practical skills to effectively and ethically represent them during the start-up phase. Students study how to interview, counsel, plan, draft, and negotiate, by critiquing relevant readings and putting this to use in the context of client interactions and classroom simulations. Students also will draft relevant blog posts, client correspondence and memoranda typical of those that surface in small business and entrepreneur representation.

Word Count: 63312

Included H5P activities: 1

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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.

This four week curriculum is for elementary learners to explore environmental engineering in urban environments. The unit starts with a broad question of “how can we make our community more sustainable?”, the unit will cover what the field of environmental engineering is, what predictability, mitigation and sustainability are, and how they relate to each other. These principles will be taught as vocabulary and will be supported with the use of anchor charts; students will be expected to use them during discussions. The unit will teach about urban infrastructure and the phenomenon of the Urban Heat Island effect. Students will then learn about and explore the possibilities of alternative energy sources and cities that already implementing green engineering. Students will explore how they can answer the question that was presented to them at the beginning of the unit. Following the engineering design process students will plan changes that they would make to their own city (in our case New Haven, Connecticut). Students will act as environmental engineers to come up with potential solutions to answer the broad question posed at the beginning of the unit.

We will:Create a model (s)Demonstrate principles ( prevention, precautionary, polluter-pays, intergration, etc )Be apart of simulations ( http://www.edinformatics.com/il/il_earth.htm )Watch Videos/Listen to Audio (https://www.eh-resources.org/podcast/ )Create Mindmaps to help organize & remember information (https://coggle.it)Environmental JusticeWords To Know environment: everything in natureliving or nonliving-including plants, animals, rocks, and water.environmentalist: someone who works to preserve the environment.

This course explores the proper role of government in the regulation of the environment. It will help students develop the tools to estimate the costs and benefits of environmental regulations. These tools will be used to evaluate a series of current policy questions, including: Should air and water pollution regulations be tightened or loosened? What are the costs of climate change in the U.S. and abroad? Is there a "Race to the Bottomâ€ in environmental regulation? What is "sustainable developmentâ€? How do environmental problems differ in developing countries? Are we running out of oil and other natural resources? Should we be more energy efficient? To gain real world experience, the course is scheduled to include a visit to the MIT cogeneration plant. We will also do an in-class simulation of an air pollution emissions market.

This course explores the proper role of government in the regulation of the environment. It will help students develop the tools to estimate the costs and benefits of environmental regulations. These tools will be used to evaluate a series of current policy questions, including: Should air and water pollution regulations be tightened or loosened? What are the costs of climate change in the U.S. and abroad? Is there a “Race to the Bottom” in environmental regulation? What is “sustainable development”? How do environmental problems differ in developing countries? Are we running out of oil and other natural resources? Should we be more energy efficient? To gain real world experience, the course is scheduled to include a visit to the MIT cogeneration plant. We will also do an in-class simulation of an air pollution emissions market.

This long classroom activity introduces students to a climate modeling software. Students visualize how temperature and snow coverage might change over the next 100 years. They run a 'climate simulation' to establish a baseline for comparison, do a 'experimental' simulation and compare the results. Students will then choose a region of their own interest to explore and compare the results with those documented in the IPCC impact reports. Students will gain a greater understanding and appreciation of the process and power of climate modeling.

In this seminar students will explore the hacking of glue! You will inquire about the way in which enzymes are a part of chemical reactions in the biological sense through simulations.  Experimental investigations will lead to the understanding of the denaturing process of enzymes.StandardsBIO.A.2.2.2 Describe how biological macromolecules form from monomers.BIO.A.2.2.3 Compare and contrast the structure and function of carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids in organisms.