The Acoustics of Speech and Hearing is an H-Level graduate course that reviews the physical processes involved in the production, propagation and reception of human speech. Particular attention is paid to how the acoustics and mechanics of the speech and auditory system define what sounds we are capable of producing and what sounds we can sense. Areas of discussion include:

the acoustic cues used in determining the direction of a sound source,

the acoustic and mechanical mechanisms involved in speech production and

the acoustic and mechanical mechanism used to transduce and analyze sounds in the ear.

This lesson focuses on treating others with respect regarding gender expression. In the lesson students use their culminating understanding of gender and gender expression to create paper dolls. Then they use the dolls to role play a respectful, affirming and inclusive approach to the gender expression of  themselves and others.

Global exploration in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries radically changed Western science, orienting philosophies of natural history to more focused fields like comparative anatomy, botany, and geology. In the United States, European scientific advances and home-grown ventures like the Wilkes Exploring Expedition to Antarctica and the Pacific inspired new endeavors in cartography, ethnography, zoology, and evolutionary theory, replacing rigid models of thought and classification with more fluid and active systems. They inspired literary authors as well. This class will examine some of the most remarkable of these authors—Herman Melville (Moby-Dick and “The Encantadas”), Henry David Thoreau (Walden), Sarah Orne Jewett (Country of the Pointed Firs), Edith Wharton (House of Mirth), Toni Morrison (A Mercy), among others—in terms of the subjects and methods they adopted, imaginatively and often critically, from the natural sciences.

Students gain a rigorous background in the primary human "sensors," as preparation for comparing them to some electronic equivalents in the associated activity. A review of human vision, hearing, smell, taste and touch, including the anatomies and operational principles, is delivered through a PowerPoint® presentation. Students learn the concept of "stimulus-sensor-coordinator-effector-response" to describe the human and electronic sensory processes. Student pairs use blindfolds, paper towels and small candies in a taste/smell sensory exercise. They take pre/post quizzes and watch two short online videos. Concepts are further strengthened by conducting the associated activity the following day, during which they learn about electronic touch, light, sound and ultrasonic sensors and then "see" sound waves while using microphones connected to computers running (free) Audacity® software.

Students are presented with a challenge question concerning color blindness and asked to use engineering principles to design devices to help people who are color blind. Using the legacy cycle as a model, this unit is comprised of five lessons designed to teach wave properties, the electromagnetic spectrum, and the anatomy of the human eye in an interactive format that introduces engineering applications and real-world references. It culminates with an activity in which student teams apply what they have learned to design devices that can aid people with colorblindness in distinguishing colors— as evidenced by their creation of brainstorming posters, descriptive brochures and short team presentations, as if they were engineers reporting to clients. Through this unit, students become more aware of the connections between the biology of the eye and the physical science concept of light, and gain an understanding of how those scientific concepts relate to the field of engineering.

Towards finding a solution to the unit's Grand Challenge Question about using nanoparticles to detect, treat and protect against skin cancer, students continue the research phase in order to answer the next research questions: What is the structure and function of skin? How does UV radiation affect the chemical reactions that go on within the skin? After seeing an ultraviolet-sensitive bead change color and learning how they work, students learn about skin anatomy and the effects of ultraviolet radiation on human skin, pollution's damaging effect on the ozone layer that can lead to increases in skin cancer, the UV index, types of skin cancer, ABCDEs of mole and lesion evaluation, and the sun protection factor (SPF) rating system for sunscreens. This prepares students to conduct the associated activity, in which they design quality-control experiments to test SPF substances.

Students learn about how sound sensors work, reinforcing their similarities to the human sense of hearing. They look at the hearing process sound waves converted to electrical signals sent to the brain through human ear anatomy as well as sound sensors. A mini-activity, which uses LEGO MINDSTORMS(TM) NXT intelligent bricks and sound sensors gives students a chance to experiment with the sound sensors in preparation for the associated activity involving the sound sensors and taskbots. A PowerPoint® presentation explains stimulus-to-response pathways, sensor fundamentals, the unit of decibels, and details about the LEGO sound sensor, including how readings are displayed and its three modes of programming sound input. Students take pre/post quizzes and watch a short online video. This lesson and its associated activity enable students to appreciate how robots can take sensor input and use it to make decisions to via programming.

In this series of lessons students explore the concepts of gender and gender expression through the use of mentor texts. Over the course of five sessions, you will read five texts and complete a process grid highlighting key components of each text. Students then create an illustration of how to demonstrate care for people across the gender spectrum.

The lesson presents a definition of sex and asserts consent is a key aspect of healthy sexual experiences. Students will define the various parts of consent and review Oregon’s laws regarding consent, sex, and minors. They will investigate what influences their decisions about sex, and will then follow a fictional couple through various decision-making processes around deciding to or not to have sex, the use of birth control, pregnancy options, and decisions around parenting. Students will also research local reproductive and sexual health clinics.

This is the second half of a basic introduction to sexually transmitted infections (STIs). This lesson focuses on prevention, the proper way to use condoms and other barrier methods, what to expect when getting tested for STIs, and how to talk to sexual partners about STI prevention.

 Students will learn about what constitutes various aspects of identity, including gender identity, sexual orientation, and explore how experiences of identity can shift across different cultures. We will discuss why acknowledging gender diversity is important, ways to respect each other, and more. 

Over the course of five sessions the teacher reads five books aloud from the list of recommended texts found in the Educator's Materials section. The teacher asks a series of discussion questions and records the answers on a process grid/anchor chart.

Building on the Introduction to Healthy Relationships lesson by the same authors, this lesson expands students’ understanding of healthy relationships. Students will review what healthy relationships look and feel like. Students will focus on how to assess the health of their own romantic and platonic relationships. The lesson also expands on power dynamics, boundaries, and consent as appropriate for older high school students. After an in-depth, discussion-based presentation reviewing these concepts, students will apply an evaluation process to review the health of fictional relationships in small groups.

This lesson provides a very basic overview of common sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and the best ways to prevent their spread. STIs are extremely common (1 in 2 people will be exposed to one by the time they’re 25), so this lesson reinforces the importance of prevention, testing, and treatment.

In this lesson, students will learn about and practice the fundamentals of healthy communication and boundary-setting in order to strengthen healthy relationship skills. Students will identify characteristics of healthy & unhealthy relationships.

Students will learn about condoms as a form of contraception and STI prevention, as well as talk about safer sex strategies, communication, and how to reserach and access healthcare services and testing.

The first page of the presentation includes photos of 12 animals. I print this page, cut up the photos, and give a set of photos to each group of students. Working in groups of 2 or 3, the students spend ~10 minutes arranging the photos to depict the evolutionary relationships among the animals. This exercise is followed by 4 clicker questions about relationships that students commonly misconstrue due to convergence or shared primitive features. I use the clicker questions to initiate class discussion of group results. Then we discuss the evidence (anatomy, biochemistry) for current thinking about these relationships. Once we have established a consensus, students are asked to place pictures of a subset of the animals at the tips of the branches on a pre-designed cladogram. The activity gives me insight into students' preconceptions regarding vertebrate phylogeny, encourages students to identify their own misconceptions, promotes peer instruction and highlights problems associated with determining relationships based on shared primitive features. Placing the animals on a pre-designed cladogram allows students to translate their hypothesis about relationships into a visual diagram, an exercise that I hope will help students to extract the phylogenetic hypotheses depicted on cladograms in papers and textbooks. Once we have established a consensus cladogram, students must go one step further and add evidence (synapomorphies) to their cladograms. Students spend ~ 10 minutes brainstorming with their group to place synapormorphies at each node of the diagram. An example is provided for whales and hippos, groups for which the evidence of shared ancestry is difficult to recognize based on the anatomy of living specimens. After adding synapomorphies to their diagrams, students will work together as a class, contributing shared derived features to a group cladogram. If time permits, it would also be possible to complete the exercise with a gallery walk, where each group posts a copy of their cladogram + synapomorphies on the wall for other groups to examine and edit.

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This lesson seeks to engage in discussions about relationships, emotional, and physical relatedness, and whether biological connections are the only connections that make a family. Understanding how society has traditionally defined family may not be the way we define it – and that’s okay. In this lesson, participants will expand their knowledge of a more involved family tree. When it comes to describing family/kinship, does a biological connection hold more weight, or do emotional connections that develop over time hold equal importance? Understanding relationships, values, and what resonates as important is helpful in practicing and engaging critical thinking skills.

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The patient is an approximately 30-year-old primigravida with an intrauterine dichorionic-diamniotic twin pregnancy. Prenatal ultrasound at 30 weeks gestation showed a multi-cystic mass without fetal parts suspicious for hydatidiform mole (twin A), and one live fetus with normal anatomy (twin B) with a corresponding enlarged, cystic placenta (placenta B). At 36 weeks gestation, the mother developed preeclampsia and preterm labor and delivered one live, morphologically normal female infant (twin B) weighing in the less than tenth percentile. The infant was transferred to the NICU after delivery for low birthweight and prematurity.

This course is designed to give the student a clear understanding of the pathophysiology of the menstrual cycle, fertilization, implantation, ovum growth development, differentiation and associated abnormalities. Disorders of fetal development including the principles of teratology and the mechanism of normal and abnormal parturition will be covered as well as the pathophysiology of the breast and disorders of lactation. Fetal asphyxia and its consequences will be reviewed with emphasis on the technology currently available for its detection. In addition the conclusion of the reproductive cycle, menopause, and the use of hormonal replacement will be covered.