Students explore the chemical identities of polymeric materials frequently used in their everyday lives. They learn how chemical composition affects the physical properties of the materials that they encounter and use frequently, as well as how cross-linking affects the properties of polymeric materials.

The fluid mosaic model describes the cell membrane as a tapestry of several types of molecules (phospholipids, cholesterols, and proteins) that are constantly moving. This movement helps the cell membrane maintain its role as a barrier between the inside and outside of the cell environments.

Properties of gases can be modeled using some relatively simple equations, which we can relate to the behavior of individual gas molecules. We will learn about the ideal gas law, vapor pressure, partial pressure, and the Maxwell Boltzmann distribution.

Students are challenged to think as biomedical engineers and brainstorm ways to administer medication to a patient who is unable to swallow. They learn about the advantages and disadvantages of current drug delivery methods—oral, injection, topical, inhalation and suppository—and pharmaceutical design considerations, including toxicity, efficacy, size, solubility/bioavailability and drug release duration. They apply their prior knowledge about human anatomy, the circulatory system, polymers, crystals and stoichiometry to real-world biomedical applications. A Microsoft® PowerPoint® presentation and worksheets are provided. This lesson prepares students for the associated activity in which they create and test large-size drug encapsulation prototypes to provide the desired delayed release and duration timing.

In this activity, learners explore liquid crystals, light and temperature. Using a postcard made of temperature-sensitive liquid crystal material, learners monitor temperature changes. By observing these changes, learners show that dark materials absorb and reemit the energy contained in light more readily than light-colored materials. Learners can also distinguish energy absorbed and reemited by radiation, convection, and conduction by comparing the behavior of black, white, and silver objects. This resource guide includes detailed explanation of the phenomenon and background information about liquid crystals.

In this activity about chemistry and electricity, learners form a battery by placing their hands onto plates of different metals. Learners detect the current by reading a DC microammeter attached to the metal plates. Learners experiment with different metals to find out what combination produces the most current as well as testing what happens when they press harder on the plates or wet their hands. Learners also investigate what happens when they wire the plates to a voltmeter.

In this classic hands-on activity, learners estimate the length of a molecule by floating a fatty acid (oleic acid) on water. This lab asks learners to record measurements and make calculations related to volume, diameter, area, and height. Learners also convert meters into nanometers. Includes teacher and student worksheets but lacks in depth procedure information. The author suggests educators search the web for more complete lab instructions.

This lab exercise exposes students to a potentially new alternative energy source hydrogen gas. Student teams are given a hydrogen generator and an oxygen generator. They balance the chemical equation for the combustion of hydrogen gas in the presence of oxygen. Then they analyze what the equation really means. Two hypotheses are given, based on what one might predict upon analyzing the chemical equation. Once students have thought about the process, they are walked through the experiment and shown how to collect the gas in different ratios. By trial and error, students determine the ideal combustion ratio. For both volume of explosion and kick generated by explosion, they qualitatively record results on a 0-4 scale. Then, students evaluate their collected results to see if the hypotheses were correct and how their results match the theoretical equation. Students learn that while hydrogen will most commonly be used for fuel cells (no combustion situation), it has been used in rocket engines (for which a tremendous combustion occurs).

Hypotonic, isotonic and hypertonic solutions (tonicity). Seeing the effect of various types of solution on the direction of osmosis.

In this activity, learners investigate the speed of chemical reactions with light sticks. Learners discover that reactions can be sped up or slowed down due to temperature changes.

Students learn about material balances, a fundamental concept of chemical engineering. They use stoichiometry to predict the mass of carbon dioxide that escapes after reacting measured quantities of sodium bicarbonate with dilute acetic acid. Students then produce the reactions of the chemicals in a small reactor made from a plastic water bottle and balloon.

Kinetics is the study of reaction rates and how they are affected. Many factors, such as concentration, pressure, temperature, and enzyme activity, can impact the rate of a reaction. For example, a molecule's kinetic energy is directly proportional to its temperature, so increasing the temperature will result in an increase in reaction rate. Created by Sal Khan.

Through two lessons and five activities, students explore the structure and function of cell membranes. Specific transport functions, including active and passive transport, are presented. In the legacy cycle tradition, students are motivated with a Grand Challenge question. As they study the ingress and egress of particles through membranes, students learn about quantum dots and biotechnology through the concept of intracellular engineering.

Students learn how crystallization and inhibition occur by examining calcium oxalate crystals with and without inhibitors that are capable of altering crystallization. Kidney stones are composed of calcium oxalate crystals, and engineers and doctors experiment with these crystals to determine how growth is affected when a potential drug is introduced. Students play the role of engineers by trying to determine which inhibitor would be the best for blocking crystallization.

Chemists are often interested in how fast a reaction will occur, and what we can do to control the rate. The study of reaction rates is called kinetics, and we will learn about average reaction rate, rate laws, the Arrhenius equation, reaction mechanisms, catalysts, and spectrophotometry.

Students gain first-hand experience with the steps of the scientific method as well as the overarching engineering design process as they conduct lab research with the aim to create a bioplastic with certain properties. Students learn about the light mechanism that causes ultraviolet bead color change, observe the effect of different light waves on a phosphorescence powder, and see the connection between florescence, phosphorescence and wavelength. Students compose hypotheses and determine experimental procedure details, as teams engineer variations on a bioplastic solid embedded with phosphorescence powder. The objective is to make a structurally sound bioplastic without reducing its glowing properties from the powder embedded within its matrix. Groups conduct qualitative and quantitative analyses of their engineered plastics, then recap and communicate their experiment conclusions in the form of a poster, slides and verbal presentation. As an extension, teams make their own testing apparatuses. As a further extension, they combine all the group results to determine which bioplastic matrix best achieves the desired properties and then “manufacture” the optimum bioplastic into glowing toy figurine end products! Many handouts, instructions, photos and rubrics are provided.