The discovery of restriction enzymes and their applications in DNA analysis has proven to be essential for biologists and chemists. This lesson focuses on restriction enzymes and their applications to DNA analysis and DNA fingerprinting. Use this lesson and its associated activity in conjunction with biology lessons on DNA analysis and DNA replication.

Through this lesson students learn how AM radios work through basic concepts about waves and magnetic fields. Waves are first introduced by establishing the difference between transverse and longitudinal waves, as well as identifying the amplitude and frequency of a given waveform. Students then learn general concepts about magnetic fields, leading into how radio waves are created and transmitted. Several demonstrations can be performed in order to help students better understand these concepts. The goal of this lesson is for students to understand how the AM radios built during the associated activity function.

Students learn the concept of angular momentum and its correlation to mass, velocity and radius. They experiment with rotation and an object's mass distribution. In an associated literacy activity, students use basic methods of comparative mythology to consider why spinning and weaving are common motifs in creation myths and folktales.

Rocks cover the earth's surface, including what is below or near human-made structures. With rocks everywhere, breaking rocks can be hazardous and potentially disastrous to people. Students are introduced to three types of material stress related to rocks: compressional, torsional and shear. They learn about rock types (sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic), and about the occurrence of stresses and weathering in nature, including physical, chemical and biological weathering.

Students are introduced to statics and dynamics, free-body diagrams, combustion and thermodynamics to gain an understanding of the forces needed to lift rockets off the ground. They learn that thrust force is needed to launch rockets into space and the energy for thrust is stored as chemical energy in the rocket's fuel. Then, using the law of conservation of energy, students learn that the chemical energy of the fuel is converted into work and heat energy during a rocket launch. A short PowerPoint® presentation is provided, including two example problems for stoichiometry review. An optional teacher demonstration is described as an extension activity.

In this activity, students revisit the Pop Rockets activity from Lesson 3. This time, however, the design of their pop-rockets will be limited by budgets and supplies. They will get a feel for the limitations of a real engineering project as well as an opportunity to redesign and retest their rockets.

The concepts of stability and equilibrium are introduced while students learn how these ideas are related to the concept of center of mass. They gain further understanding when they see, first-hand, how equilibrium is closely related to an object's center of mass. In an associated literacy activity, students learn about motion capture technology, the importance of center of gravity in animation and how use the concept of center of gravity in writing an action scene.

Simple and compound machines are designed to make work easier. When we encounter a machine that does not fit this understanding, the so-called machine seems absurd. In this lesson, the cartoons of Rube Goldberg are introduced and engage the students in critical thinking about the way his inventions make a simple task even harder to complete. As the final lesson in the simple machines unit, the study of Rube Goldberg machines can help students evaluate the importance and usefulness of the many machines around them.

Laws of Exponents

Product and Quotient Rules
The Power rule for Exponents
Negative and Zero Exponents
Simplify Expressions using the Exponent Rules

Through this concluding lesson and its associated activity, students experience one valuable and often overlooked skill of successful scientists and engineers communicating your work and ideas. They explore the importance of scientific communication, including the basic, essential elements of communicating new information to the public and pitfalls to avoid. In the associated activity, student groups create posters depicting their solutions to the unit's challenge question accurate, efficient methods for detecting cancer-causing genes using optical biosensors which includes providing a specific example with relevant equations. Students are also individually assessed on their understanding of refraction via a short quiz. This lesson and its associated activity conclude the unit and serve as the culminating Go Public phase of the Legacy Cycle, providing unit review and summative assessment.

Students learn how to classify materials as mixtures, elements or compounds and identify the properties of each type. The concept of separation of mixtures is also introduced since nearly every element or compound is found naturally in an impure state such as a mixture of two or more substances, and it is common that chemical engineers use separation techniques to separate mixtures into their individual components. For example, the separation of crude oil into purified hydrocarbons such as natural gas, gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and/or lubricants.

In this activity, you and your students will explore Elizabethan stage practices as the rustic yet enthusiastic amateur actors from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. While it's not necessary to teach Shakespeare's biography while studying his plays, sometimes opportunities to explore his world through his own eyes present themselves in his text. Students' new insights into the text will provide them with a deeper appreciation for Shakespeare’s world. This activity will take one or two class periods.

Students will learn about bone structure, bone development and growth, and bone functions. Later, students will apply this understanding to answer the Challenge Question presented in the "Fix the Hip" lesson and use the acquired learning to construct an informative brochure about osteoporosis and biomedical engineering contributions to this field.

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 the daily and annual cycles of solar angles used in power calculations to maximize photovoltaic power generation. They gain an overview of solar tracking systems that improve PV panel efficiency by following the sun through the sky.

Students learn about solar energy and how to calculate the amount of solar energy available at a given location and time of day on Earth. The importance of determining incoming solar energy for solar devices is discussed.

This lesson discusses solenoids. Students learn how to calculate the magnetic field along the axis of a solenoid and complete an activity exploring the magnetic field of a metal slinky. Solenoids form the basis for the magnet of an MRI. Exploring the properties of this solenoid helps students understand the MRI machine.

Represent inequalities on a number line.
Represent inequalities using interval notation.
Use the addition and multiplication properties to solve algebraic inequalities and express their solutions graphically and with interval notation.
Solve inequalities that contain absolute values.
Combine properties of inequalities to isolate variables, solve algebraic inequalities, and express their solutions graphically.
Simplify and solve algebraic inequalities using the distributive property to clear parentheses and fractions.

In this lesson, students are introduced to the historical motivation for space exploration. They learn about the International Space Station as an example of recent space travel innovation and are introduced to new and futuristic ideas that space engineers are currently working on to propel space research far into the future!

These materials are created to work as a course, combining activities to increase vocabulary, read, learn about Hispanic cultures and differentiate standard Spanish uses from the U.S. variants.