This activity has students bodily move as propagating seismic waves. They record their travel time along a string of measured length to compute average wave velocities. They then enact an earthquake, and use the time lag between wave arrival times and their computed speeds to determine the position of the epicenter.

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Students explore how different materials (sand, gravel, lava rock) with different water contents on different slopes result in landslides of different severity. They measure the severity by how far the landslide debris extends into model houses placed in the flood plain. This activity is a small-scale model of a debris chute currently being used by engineers and scientists to study landslide characteristics. Much of this activity setup is the same as for the Survive That Tsunami activity in Lesson 5 of the Natural Disasters unit.

The real world is seldom about whole numbers. If you precisely measure anything, you're likely to get a decimal. If you don't know how to multiply these decimals, then you won't be able to do all the powerful things that multiplication can do in the real world (figure out your commission as a robot possum salesperson, determining how much shag carpet you need for your secret lair, etc.). Common Core Standards: 5.NBT.B.5, 5.NBT.B.7

Accounting is the process of identifying, measuring, recording, and communicating an organization’s economic activities to users. Users need information for decision making. With an emphasis on the corporate form of business organization, this lesson will examine how financial transactions are analyzed and then reported using four financial statements: the income statement, statement of changes in equity, balance sheet, and statement of cash flows. This lesson introduces each statement using an example based on a fictitious corporate organization called Big Dog Carworks Corp.

This quick tour provides a brief introduction to the Cellular Microscopy Phenotype Ontology (CMPO). It covers the scientific principles that led to the creation of this ontology and how it can be used.

By the end of the course you will be able to:
Describe the role of CMPO
Search and browse the ontology and use it to annotate data

This unit provides a discussion of public health origins and history, the differentiation from private health, and the significant value provided by public health. It also reviews important terminology and includes an examination of the general organization of public health agencies and the flow of data within public health.

This course is a detailed examination of the grammar of Japanese and its structure which is significantly different from English, with special emphasis on problems of interest in the study of linguistic universals. Data from a broad group of languages is studied for comparison with Japanese. This course assumes familiarity with linguistic theory.

Killer Whale Task Force is the introduction to eight units in the Explore the Salish Sea Curriculum. Each unit contains a detailed unit plan, a slideshow, student journal, and assessments. All elements are adaptable and can be tailored to your local community.
This unit introduces the overall phenomenon for the curriculum-the endangered status of the Southern Resident Killer Whales - and puts students in the roles of working group members in the Governor-appointed taskforce to identify the biggest threats and recommend solutions to save the whales. No matter which units you choose to implement with your class, start here to set the premise.

In this lesson, students learn that sound is energy and has the ability to do work. Students discover that sound is produced by a vibration and they observe soundwaves and how they travel through mediums. They understand that sound can be absorbed, reflected or transmitted. Through associated activities, videos and a PowerPoint presentation led by the teacher, students further their exploration of sound through discussions in order to build background knowledge.

Adam Savage walks through two spectacular examples of profound scientific discoveries that came from simple, creative methods anyone could have followed -- Eratosthenes' calculation of the Earth's circumference around 200 BC and Hippolyte Fizeau's measurement of the speed of light in 1849. A quiz, thought provoking question, and links for further study are provided to create a lesson around the 7-minute video. Educators may use the platform to easily "Flip" or create their own lesson for use with their students of any age or level.

This course consists of an international analysis of the impact of epidemic diseases on western society and culture from the bubonic plague to HIV/AIDS and the recent experience of SARS and swine flu. Leading themes include: infectious disease and its impact on society; the development of public health measures; the role of medical ethics; the genre of plague literature; the social reactions of mass hysteria and violence; the rise of the germ theory of disease; the development of tropical medicine; a comparison of the social, cultural, and historical impact of major infectious diseases; and the issue of emerging and re-emerging diseases.

After learning how to plot planes, lines, and poles on stereonets, how to describe folds, and what simple fabrics are (see attached file), students analyze the simple fabrics of this real region using the rich data that are plotted on a beautiful outcrop geologic map. In the analysis, they compare the geometry of large- and small-scale structures using step-by-step instructions and multiple stereonet analyses, draw an accurate cross-section using data from the stereonets, and work out a sequence of events and geologic history.

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Lectures which precede this activity cover the different fossil groups, time period & depositional environment of the localities, as when as basic ecology & biodiversity. During class, the students go on a field trip to fossil localities to collect their data. Back in class, the students use the primary literature, fossil id books and web-based resources like Paleontology Portal to identify their fossil organisms. They perform a quantitative analysis of biodiversity, and reconstruct the paleocommunity based on their data and the literature. The end product is a scientific-style paper.

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Unit Goals: By the end of the unit, students should be able to combine some or all of the following ideas to explain the flashlight phenomenon or other related events.PS3.A Definitions of energyPS3.B Conservation of energy and energy transferPS3.D Energy in chemical processes and everyday lifePS1.A Structure and Properties of MatterPhenomenon & Anchoring Question Phenomenon: [Mr./Ms.Teacher] accidentally shoves the flashlight in a desk drawer and the switch gets flipped on. The flashlight stays on inside the desk for a whole month (30 days). When [Mr/Ms. Teacher] goes to use the flashlight it doesn’t work anymore. What happened? What caused it to stop working? What’s happening inside the flashlight or parts of the flashlight that might cause it to stop working?Question: Why would a flashlight eventually stop working if it were accidentally left turned on for a period of time?  

Students learn about current electricity and necessary conditions for the existence of an electric current. Students construct a simple electric circuit and a galvanic cell to help them understand voltage, current and resistance.

This is a term paper submitted as a series of iterations over the course of a semester. Students, with guidance from the professor, select a region and find papers in the literature describing geophysical data and interpreted results. Each iteration adds a new set of geophysical data (following the sequence covered in the course) and the students gradually build a geophysical cross section across their region of interest. What is effective about this assignment is that it both exposes student to current literature and allows them to compare/contrast the results derived from different geophysical techniques in the same area. This exposes students to the advantages and trade-offs between different techniques, and how combinations of geophysical data are more effective at illuminating crustal properties than any individual technique alone. It also reinforces one of the basic concepts I emphasize in the lectures -- that variation in physical characteristics (density, magnetic susceptibility, seismic velocity, etc.) between sandstone/basalt/granite can be used to characterize them.
Has minimal/no quantitative component

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Students learn about the basic properties of light and how light interacts with objects. They are introduced to the additive and subtractive color systems, and the phenomena of refraction. Students further explore the differences between the additive and subtractive color systems via predictions, observations and analysis during three demonstrations. These topics help students gain a better understanding of how light is connected to color, bringing them closer to answering an overarching engineering challenge question.

Learn to connect position-time and velocity-time graphs. Explore velocity using an animated car icon connected to either a position-time or a velocity-time graph, or both. Then investigate other motion graphs.

Students learn about enzyme function, enzyme specificity, and the molecular basis of lactose intolerance through experiments with the enzyme lactase and analysis and discussion questions. Students engage in the scientific practices of designing and carrying out experiments and interpreting data. This activity is aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards.

This lesson unit is intended to help assess how well students are able to interpret and use scale drawings to plan a garden layout. This involves using proportional reasoning and metric units.