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DNA Forensics and Color Pigments

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DNA Forensics and Color Pigments

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Students perform DNA forensics using food coloring to enhance their understanding of DNA fingerprinting, restriction enzymes, genotyping and DNA gel electrophoresis. They place small drops of different food coloring ("water-based paint") on strips of filter paper and then place one paper strip end in water. As water travels along the paper strips, students observe the pigments that compose the paint decompose into their color components. This is an example of the chromatography concept applied to DNA forensics, with the pigments in the paint that define the color being analogous to DNA fragments of different lengths.

Subject:: Applied Science; Engineering; Genetics; Life Science; Physical Science; Physics
Material Type:: Activity/Lab
Provider:: TeachEngineering
Provider Set:: TeachEngineering
Date Added:: 09/18/2014

DNA: The Human Body Recipe

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DNA: The Human Body Recipe

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As a class, students work through an example showing how DNA provides the "recipe" for making our body proteins. They see how the pattern of nucleotide bases (adenine, thymine, guanine, cytosine) forms the double helix ladder shape of DNA, and serves as the code for the steps required to make genes. They also learn some ways that engineers and scientists are applying their understanding of DNA in our world.

Subject:: Applied Science; Engineering; Genetics; Life Science
Material Type:: Activity/Lab; Lesson Plan; Teaching/Learning Strategy
Provider:: TeachEngineering
Provider Set:: TeachEngineering
Date Added:: 09/18/2014

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Dam Forces

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Students learn how the force of water helps determine the size and shape of dams. They use clay to build models of four types of dams, and observe the force of the water against each type. They conclude by deciding which type of dam they, as Splash Engineering engineers, will design for Thirsty County.

Subject:: Applied Science; Earth and Space Science; Engineering; Hydrology
Material Type:: Activity/Lab
Provider:: TeachEngineering
Provider Set:: TeachEngineering
Date Added:: 09/18/2014

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Dam Impacts

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While the creation of a dam provides many benefits, it can have negative impacts on local ecosystems. Students learn about the major environmental impacts of dams and the engineering solutions used to address them.

Subject:: Applied Science; Earth and Space Science; Engineering; Hydrology
Material Type:: Lesson Plan
Provider:: TeachEngineering
Provider Set:: TeachEngineering
Date Added:: 09/18/2014

Dam Pass or Fail

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Dam Pass or Fail

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Students conduct Internet research to investigate the purpose and current functioning status of some of the largest dams throughout the world. They investigate the success or failure of eight dams and complete a worksheet. While researching the dams, they also gain an understanding of the scale of these structures by recording and comparing their reservoir capacities. Students come to understand that dams, like all engineered structures, have a finite lifespan and require ongoing maintenance and evaluation for their usefulness.

Subject:: Applied Science; Engineering; Mathematics
Material Type:: Activity/Lab
Provider:: TeachEngineering
Provider Set:: TeachEngineering
Date Added:: 09/18/2014

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Dams

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Through eight lessons, students are introduced to many facets of dams, including their basic components, the common types (all designed to resist strong forces), their primary benefits (electricity generation, water supply, flood control, irrigation, recreation), and their importance (historically, currently and globally). Through an introduction to kinetic and potential energy, students come to understand how dams generate electricity. They learn about the structure, function and purpose of locks, which involves an introduction to Pascal's law, water pressure and gravity. Other lessons introduce students to common environmental impacts of dams and the engineering approaches to address them. They learn about the life cycle of salmon and the many engineered dam structures that aid in their river passage, as they think of their own methods and devices that could help fish migrate past dams. Students learn how dams and reservoirs become part of the Earth's hydrologic cycle, focusing on the role of evaporation. To conclude, students learn that dams do not last forever; they require ongoing maintenance, occasionally fail or succumb to "old age," or are no longer needed, and are sometimes removed. Through associated hands-on activities, students track their personal water usage; use clay and plastic containers to model and test four types of dam structures; use paper cups and water to learn about water pressure and Pascal's Law; explore kinetic energy by creating their own experimental waterwheel from two-liter plastic bottles; collect and count a stream's insects to gauge its health; play an animated PowerPoint game to quiz their understanding of the salmon life cycle and fish ladders; run a weeklong experiment to measure water evaporation and graph their data; and research eight dams to find out and compare their original purposes, current status, reservoir capacity and lifespan. Woven throughout the unit is a continuing hypothetical scenario in which students act as consulting engineers with a Splash Engineering firm, assisting Thirsty County in designing a dam for Birdseye River.

Subject:: Applied Science; Earth and Space Science; Engineering; Hydrology
Material Type:: Full Course; Unit of Study
Provider:: TeachEngineering
Provider Set:: TeachEngineering
Date Added:: 09/18/2014

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Dangerous Air

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By tracing the movement of radiation released during an accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, students see how air pollution, like particulate matter, can become a global issue.

Subject:: Applied Science; Atmospheric Science; Earth and Space Science; Engineering
Material Type:: Activity/Lab
Provider:: TeachEngineering
Provider Set:: TeachEngineering
Date Added:: 10/14/2015

Data to Information

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Data to Information

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This lesson incorporates sea surface data collected by NASA satellites. Data for three surface characteristics- height, temperature and speed- are used for several activities. Students examine the differences in speed of currents relative to distance from the Equator. Sea surface data anomalies are charted and further analyzed. In addition, surface current data is presented to examine patterns related to El Niño. Note that this is lesson three of five on the Ocean Motion website. Each lesson investigates ocean surface circulation using satellite and model data and can be done independently. See Related URL's for links to the Ocean Motion Website that provide science background information, data resources, teacher material, student guides and a lesson matrix.

Subject:: Applied Science; Atmospheric Science; Earth and Space Science; Engineering; Mathematics; Oceanography; Physical Science; Physics
Material Type:: Activity/Lab; Case Study; Data Set; Diagram/Illustration; Lesson Plan
Provider:: NASA
Provider Set:: NASA Wavelength
Date Added:: 04/08/2023

Daylighting Design

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Daylighting Design

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Students explore the many different ways that engineers provide natural lighting to interior spaces. They analyze various methods of daylighting by constructing model houses from foam core board and simulating the sun with a desk lamp. Teams design a daylighting system for their model houses based on their observations and calculations of the optimal use of available sunlight to their structure.

Subject:: Applied Science; Architecture and Design; Engineering
Material Type:: Activity/Lab
Provider:: TeachEngineering
Provider Set:: TeachEngineering
Date Added:: 10/14/2015

Decibels and Acoustical Engineering

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Decibels and Acoustical Engineering

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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.

Subject:: Applied Science; Engineering; Mathematics; Measurement and Data; Physical Science; Statistics and Probability
Material Type:: Lesson
Provider:: TeachEngineering
Provider Set:: Lessons
Date Added:: 03/01/2019

Decimals, Fractions & Percentages

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Decimals, Fractions & Percentages

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Students learn about and practice converting between fractions, decimals and percentages. Using a LEGO® MINDSTORMS® NXT robot and a touch sensor, each group inputs a fraction of its choosing. Team members convert this same fraction into a decimal, and then a percentage via hand calculations, and double check their work using the NXT robot. Then they observe the robot moving forward and record that distance. Students learn that the distance moved is a fraction of the full distance, based on the fraction that they input, so if they input ½, the robot moves half of the original distance. From this, students work backwards to compute the full distance. Groups then compete in a game in which they are challenged to move the robot as close as possible to a target distance by inputting a fraction into the NXT bot.

Subject:: Applied Science; Engineering; Mathematics
Material Type:: Activity/Lab
Provider:: TeachEngineering
Provider Set:: TeachEngineering
Date Added:: 09/18/2014

Decision Making Under Uncertainty: Introduction to Structured Expert Judgment

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Decision Making Under Uncertainty: Introduction to Structured Expert Judgment

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In an increasingly data-driven world, data and its use aren’t always all it’s cracked up to be. This course aims to address the critical lack of any or appropriate data in many areas where complex decisions need to be made.

For instance, how can you predict volcano activity when no eruptions have been recorded over a long period of time? Or how can you predict how many people will be resistant to antibiotics in a country where there is no available data at national level? Or how about estimating the time needed to evacuate people in flood risk areas?

In situations like these, expert opinions are needed to address complex decision-making problems. This course, aimed at researchers and professionals from any academic background, will show you how expert opinion can be used for uncertainty quantification in a rigorous manner.

Various techniques are used in practice. They vary from the informal and undocumented opinion of one expert to a fully documented and formal elicitation of a panel of experts, whose uncertainty assessments can be aggregated to provide support for complex decision making.

In this course you will be introduced to state-of-the-art expert judgment methods, particularly the Classical Model (CM) or Cooke’s method, which is arguably the most rigorous method for performing Structured Expert Judgment.

CM, developed at TU Delft by Roger Cooke, has been successfully applied for over 30 years in areas as diverse as climate change, disaster management, epidemiology, public and global health, ecology, aeronautics/aerospace, nuclear safety, environment and ecology, engineering and many others.

Subject:: Applied Science; Engineering; Mathematics; Statistics and Probability
Material Type:: Full Course
Provider:: Delft University of Technology
Provider Set:: Delft University OpenCourseWare
Author:: Dr. A.M. Hanea; Dr. ir. G.F. Nane; Prof. dr. R.M. Cooke
Date Added:: 05/11/2023

Deep Impact Videos and Animations

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Deep Impact Videos and Animations

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This is a webpage with videos that relate to the Deep Impact Encounter. Learners can watch videos about the mission, encounter, science, and results.

Subject:: Applied Science; Engineering
Material Type:: Diagram/Illustration
Provider:: NASA
Provider Set:: NASA Wavelength
Date Added:: 05/02/2023

Deformation: Nanocomposite Compression

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Deformation: Nanocomposite Compression

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Students learn about nanocomposites, compression and strain as they design and program robots that compress materials. Student groups conduct experiments to determine how many LEGO MINDSTORMS(TM) NXT motor rotations it takes to compress soft nanocomposites, including mini marshmallows, Play-Doh®, bread and foam. They measure the length and width of their nanocomposite objects before and after compression to determine the change in length and width as a function of motor rotation.

Subject:: Applied Science; Architecture and Design; Engineering
Material Type:: Activity/Lab
Provider:: TeachEngineering
Provider Set:: TeachEngineering
Date Added:: 09/18/2014

Delay Insentitive Circuits -- Structures, Semantics, and Strategies

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Delay Insentitive Circuits -- Structures, Semantics, and Strategies

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The design of concurrent distributed hardware systems is a major challenge for engineers today and is bound to escalate in the future, but engineering education continues to emphasize traditional tools of logic design that are just not up to the job. For engineers tackling realistic projects, improvised attempts at synchronization across multiple clock domains have long been a fact of life. Prone to hazards and metastability, these ad hoc interfaces could well be the least trustworthy aspects of a system, and typically also the least able to benefit from any readily familiar textbook techniques of analysis or verification.

Progress in the long run depends on a change of tactics. Instead of the customary but inevitably losing battle to describe complex systems in terms of their stepwise time evolution, taking their causal relationships and handshaking protocols as a starting point cuts to the chase by putting the emphasis where it belongs. This way of thinking may call for setting aside a hard earned legacy of practice and experience, but it leads ultimately to a more robust and scalable methodology.

Delay insensitive circuits rely on local coordination and control from the ground up. The most remarkable consequence of adhering to this course is that circuits can get useful things done without any clock distribution network whatsoever. Because a handshake acknowledgment concludes each interaction among primitive components and higher level subsystems alike, a clock pulse to mark them would be superfluous. This effect can bring a welcome relief to projects whose timing infrastructure would otherwise tend to create more problems than it solves.

The theory of delay insensitive circuits is not new but has not yet attracted much attention outside of its research community. At best ignored and at worst discouraged in standard curricula, this topic until now has been accessible only by navigating a sea of conference papers and journal articles, some of them paywalled. Popular misconceptions and differing conventions about terminology and notation have posed further barriers to entry. To address this need, this book presents a unified account of delay insensitive circuits from first principles to cutting edge concepts, subject only to an undergraduate-level understanding of discrete math. In an approachable tutorial format with numerous illustrations, exercises, and over three hundred references, it guides an engineering professional or advanced student towards proficiency in this extensive field.

Subject:: Applied Science; Career and Technical Education; Computer Science; Computer, Networking and Telecommunications Systems; Electronic Technology; Engineering
Material Type:: Textbook
Author:: Dennis Furey
Date Added:: 04/11/2023

The Delft Sand, Clay & Rock Cutting Model

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The Delft Sand, Clay & Rock Cutting Model

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In dredging, trenching, (deep sea) mining, drilling, tunnel boring and many other applications, sand, clay or rock has to be excavated. This book gives an overview of cutting theories. It starts with a generic model, which is valid for all types of soil (sand, clay and rock) after which the specifics of dry sand, water saturated sand, clay, atmospheric rock and hyperbaric rock are covered. For each soil type small blade angles and large blade angles, resulting in a wedge in front of the blade, are discussed. For each case considered, the equations/model for the cutting forces, power and specific energy are given. The models are verified with laboratory research, mainly at the Delft University of Technology, but also with data from literature.

Subject:: Applied Science; Engineering; Maritime Science
Material Type:: Textbook
Author:: Sape A. Miedema
Date Added:: 05/03/2023

Density Column Lab - Part 1

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Density Column Lab - Part 1

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In this first part of a two-part lab activity, students use triple balance beams and graduated cylinders to take measurements and calculate the densities of several common, irregularly shaped objects with the purpose to resolve confusion about mass and density. After this activity, conduct the associated Density Column Lab - Part 2 activity before presenting the associated Density & Miscibility lesson for discussion about concepts that explain what students have observed.

Subject:: Applied Science; Engineering; Mathematics; Physical Science; Physics
Material Type:: Activity/Lab
Provider:: TeachEngineering
Provider Set:: TeachEngineering
Date Added:: 09/18/2014

Density Column Lab - Part 2

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Density Column Lab - Part 2

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Concluding a two-part lab activity, students use triple balance beams and graduated cylinders to take measurements and calculate densities of several household liquids and compare them to the densities of irregularly shaped objects (as determined in Part 1). Then they create density columns with the three liquids and four solid items to test their calculations and predictions of the different densities. Once their density columns are complete, students determine the effect of adding detergent to the columns. After this activity, present the associated Density & Miscibility lesson for a discussion about why the column layers do not mix.

Subject:: Applied Science; Chemistry; Engineering; Life Science; Mathematics; Physical Science; Physics
Material Type:: Activity/Lab
Provider:: TeachEngineering
Provider Set:: TeachEngineering
Date Added:: 09/18/2014

Density & Miscibility

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Density & Miscibility

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After students conduct the two associated activities, Density Column Lab - Parts 1 and 2, present this lesson to provide them with an understanding of why the density column's oil, water and syrup layers do not mix and how the concepts of density and miscibility relate to water chemistry and remediation. Topics covered include miscibility, immiscibility, hydrogen bonds, hydrophobic and hydrophilic. Through the density column lab activities, students see liquids and solids of different densities interact without an understanding of why the resulting layers do not mix. This lesson gives students insight on some of the most fundamental chemical properties of water and how it interacts with different molecules.

Subject:: Applied Science; Chemistry; Engineering; Physical Science
Material Type:: Lesson Plan
Provider:: TeachEngineering
Provider Set:: TeachEngineering
Date Added:: 09/18/2014

Desafío de Apilamiento de Copas, Americorp Bolsa de STEM

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Desafío de Apilamiento de Copas, Americorp Bolsa de STEM

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¡Desafío de equipo! Use una herramienta simple para apilar tazas hecha de cuerda. ¿Cuántos vasos puede apilar tu equipo sin usar las manos? Actividad de Bolsa de STEM Semanal. Agentes de Colorado Americorp en los condados de Araphahoe, Denver, Garfield, Larimer y Weld. Trabajo apoyado por la Corporación para el Servicio Nacional y Comunitario bajo el número de subvención 18AFHCO0010008 de Americorps. Las opiniones o puntos de vista expresados en esta lección pertenecen a los autores y no representan necesariamente la posición oficial o una posición respaldada por la Corporación o el programa Americorps.

Subject:: Applied Science; Communication; Design; Engineering; English Language Arts; Physical Science; Physics; STEAM; Visual Arts and Design
Material Type:: Activity/Lab; Game; Lesson Plan
Provider:: Americorps
Provider Set:: STEM in a bag weekly activity
Date Added:: 02/24/2023