Fascinating Friction!
In this activity, students use wood, wax paper and oil to investigate the importance of lubrication between materials and to understand the concept of friction. Using wax paper and oil placed between pieces of wood, the function of lubricants between materials is illustrated. Students extend their understanding of friction to bones and joints in the skeletal system and become aware of what engineers can do to help reduce friction in the human body as well as in machines.
Pitch and Frequency
To further their understanding of sound energy, students identify the different pitches and frequencies created by a vibrating ruler and a straw kazoo. They create high- and low-pitch sound waves.
Traveling Sound
Students explore how sound waves move through liquids, solids and gases in a series of simple sound energy experiments. Understanding the properties of sound and how sound waves travel helps engineers determine the best room shape and construction materials when designing sound recording studios, classrooms, libraries, concert halls and theaters
Disaster Dynamics
The Disaster Dynamics project is a learning environment for the study of the unique challenges surrounding natural disasters. By focusing on dynamics, this project emphasizes the complex and emergent interplay between different aspects of the design activities and the extreme event. The website has several educational role-playing simulation games such as decision making under uncertainty, complex systems and emergent properties, understanding design decisions and fostering collaborations.
Chronos: a network for Earth system history
CHRONOS (Greek: time) aims to create a dynamic, interactive and time-calibrated framework for Earth history. CHRONOS's main objective is to develop a network of databases and visualization and analytical methodologies that broadly deal with chronostratigraphy - that is, with developing a better tool (the time scale) for understanding fundamental Earth processes through time. The CHRONOS platform will provide a new investigative environment for interdisciplinary Earth history research that includ
Star Library: What Makes the Standard Deviation Larger or Smaller?
The activity is designed to help students develop a better intuitive understanding of what is meant by variability in statistics. Emphasis is placed on the standard deviation as a measure of variability. As they learn about the standard deviation, many students focus on the variability of bar heights in a histogram when asked to compare the variability of two distributions. For these students, variability refers to the “variation” in bar heights. Other students may focus only on the range of
Java Demography
Java Demography, an application that simulates exponential growth in age-structured populations, enables users to manipulate values for age-specific mortality rates, fertility rates, and initial population characteristics.
Through observation of how population characteristics change through time, users of Java Demography can investigate important questions in population biology, develop a deeper understanding of fundamental population concepts, and explore issues related to population policy.
Data Analysis: Two-Dice Toss
Once students realize that the outcomes of tossing one die are equally likely, they sometimes transfer that knowledge to tossing two dice. This is a common misconception that is best addressed through data collection and analyzing that data rather than through telling. See suggested two-dice games below that students can play to gain experiential knowledge of the results of tossing two dice. Several of the games encourage students to develop better strategies in order to win and their growing un
Math Activity Themes: Bats
Bats are a common theme at Halloween. Use these resources to capitalize on student interest in bats and develop student understanding of common mathematical patterns.
Hundred Board Activities 2
Students use "magic" to navigate around the hundred board. This activity introduces horizontal arrows which mean move one square in the direction the arrow points and vertical arrows which mean move up or down one row in the direction the arrow points. These activities support students as they develop understanding of powerful number patterns in the hundred board: (1) moving across or back one space means adding or subtracting one from the starting number; (2) moving up or down one row means add
Math Tours: Fractions
Students need many concrete experiences with fractions to develop a deep understanding of the three models of fractions: area, linear and set models. Teachers need to address all three models in well-designed instructional activities so that students develop a rich concept of fractions that they can use to make sense of numbers, operations, measurement and probability. The Math Tours include: activities, problem solving, games, writing to learn, templates, math-literature connections, and web li
Algebra: Growing Patterns
Introduce elementary students to the concept of functions by investigating growing patterns. Visual patterns formed with manipulatives are especially effective for elementary students and allow them to concretely build understanding as they first reproduce, then extend the pattern to the next couple of stages.
Semi-automatic control system for hydraulic shovel
A semi-automatic control system for a hydraulic shovel has been developed. Using this system, unskilled operators can operate a hydraulic shovel easily and accurately. A mathematical control model of a hydraulic shovel with a controller was constructed and a control algorithm was developed by simulation. This algorithm was applied to a hydraulic shovel and its effectiveness was evaluated. High control accuracy and high-stability performance were achieved by feedback plus feedforward control, non
What is Matter?
Our understanding of atoms has been formed through decades of experimentation. In this activity, students learn about the historical developments of atomic theory while labeling the new discoveries.
Workers Bookstore and School Concert and Dance announcement
Pittsburgh Workers School; Cultural Activities;Robert Minor;Announcement for a Labor Day concert and dance sponsored by the Workers School.
Our Lives Were Healthier Before: Focus Groups With African American, American Indian, Hispanic/Latin
Focus groups were conducted to explore health-related beliefs and experiences of African American, Hispanic/ Latino, American Indian, and Hmong people with diabetes and engage community members in improving diabetes care and education for these populations. Eighty participants attended 12 focus groups, 3 per population. Major themes were loss of health attributed to modern American lifestyles, lack of confidence in the medical system, and the importance of spirituality. Participants recommended
Measuring Health Disparities
Measuring Health Disparities is designed to be accessible to a broad audience of practitioners across all sectors of the public health workforce. In contains audio and interactive elements and focuses on some basic issues for public health practice - how to understand, define, and measure health disparity. The material is divided into four parts.
Parts One and Two review what health disparities are, how they are defined, and provide and overview of common issues faced in measuring health dispar
Spectroscopic Simulator
This applet covers an aspect of the Physical Chemistry II course that students often find confusing. Although it is based on relatively simple mathematics, a complete understanding of the phenomenon requires assimilating the following concepts: The energy levels of a diatomic molecule are given by the formula: E(v,J) = hv (v + ½) + BJ (J + 1); v = 0..infinity, J=0..infinity. A molecule absorbs light at frequencies that correspond to difference between energy levels. In this case, we are interes
Water Uses and Children's Lives in East Africa
asks students to compare their interactions with water to those of children in Kenya and Tanzania and discover that access to water helps to define children's roles in the family. They can then demonstrate their understanding through essays and pictures.
Learning Objects
A learning object is best described as a representation designed to be reused in different educational contexts. In this page you will references to my papers and examples of various learning objects develop either by my self or by my students. Learning objects might reside in digital repositories, ready to be located and utilized by those involved in educational activities (e.g., teachers and students). They address: (a) key concepts from disciplines, in visual and often interactive ways not pe
