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Physics
Lessons
The
physics lessons are incorporated into three units of the PULSE
curricula. The three units are Powerful
Explorations of Health and Energy, Shifting
the Balance towards Health and Protecting Human
Subjects: Skin Cancer Clinical Studies. There
are physics components to other units as well.
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The lessons
are organized to concentrate on important big ideas, which
are addressed by a learning cycle approach.
At the completion of each big idea’s learning cycle students
should be able to answer the corresponding driving question.
Typically,
each learning cycle contains four lessons. The lessons associated
with a specific learning cycle may take from a couple of days
to a few weeks to complete. The first lesson engages the students'
interest in the big idea, prompting them to demonstrate the
background they bring to the topic and to ask questions. In
the second lesson, students explore the big idea, searching
for answers to their questions and expanding their understanding
of the concept. The third lesson is an opportunity for students
to explain the big idea. In the fourth lesson the students
apply what they learned to a new situation.
The physics
learning cycles of Powerful
Explorations of Health and Energy, Shifting
the Balance towards Health and Protecting
Human Subjects: Skin Cancer Clinical Studies,
address National
Education Standards for physics and students
explore concepts of physics that have shaped the America’s
history. These three units also address social studies, language
arts and general mathematics.
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In "Powerful
Explorations of Health and Energy",
described below, students investigate the role government
plays in protecting human health by considering the
impact of laws and policies on health. The government
must also reflect health concerns related to the impact
energy
creating industries have on the environment and the
environmental health impact of the use of energy sources.
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In
"Shifting
the Balance towards Health", described below, students
investigate how the Government policies can play crucial
roles in
protecting us and our
health
from a myriad of environmental factors, specifically those
which humans have control over. In this unit students will
explore the judicial routes that have and can be taken
to impact governmental policy regarding environmental health
factors.
- In "Protecting
Human Subjects: Skin Cancer Clinical Studies",
described below, students investigate the cutting edge technologies
in both physics and biology which are being implemented for
both detecting
and curing disease. Students
also learn about the modern history of scientific research
involving human subjects and what regulations and documents
exist for the protection of these participants.
At the
end of the unit, the students will be able to apply their
new scientific understanding to the Major Project where they
produce a product to demonstrate what they learned in the
unit.
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For "Powerful
Explorations of Health and Energy", students
will organize a moot court. A moot court provides the
venue for students to assimilate what they have learned
from
science,
government,
language arts and mathematics as they address environmental
health and biomedical issues. In preparation for this
moot court they must research cases related to environmental
health or biotechnology and drug issues. They will
prepare for the case and carry it out using the background
they have developed over the past semester.
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For "Shifting
the Balance towards Health", students
will form a task force that has been called together
to talk about energy policies, but it isn’t
all about how are we going to get fuel our world,
we also
must
figure out how to do this with as little impact
on human health as possible. Task force members
include
those who are particularly interested in this
aspect of energy policy.
- For "Protecting
Human Subjects: Skin Cancer Clinical Studies", Students
will participate in a simulation of a Senate hearing before
the committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
The subject of the hearing is to determine
whether the Senate will approve a bill proposing federal regulations
on the use of tanning booths by minors and a mandated education
program on sun awareness.
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What
can we do to minimize the environmental health impacts of
our inevitable consumption of energy? |
Big
Idea |
Our
society is heavily dependent on the energy we consume.
The consumption of this energy contributes to environmental
health concerns. |
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Where
does our energy come from? |
Big
Idea |
Energy
can be neither created nor destroyed. All traditional
energy sources are finite in nature, and their use inevitably
causes pollution and/or waste. |
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What
is electricity? What laws govern its behavior? |
Big
Idea |
A
large portion of the energy we consume is in the form
of electricity. Electricity performs work by electrons
flowing through a circuit. |
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How
are magnets used to generate electricity? |
Big
Idea |
Electricity
is generated using electromagnetic fields in machines
called turbines. There are many different ways of driving
these turbines, such as falling water and steam. |
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Where
did the energy stored in fossil fuels originally come from?
Are fossil fuels renewable? |
Big
Idea |
Fossil
fuels are used to generate electricity by the conversion
of their stored chemical-potential energy to heat. This
heat is then used to power a turbine. The burning and
mining of fossil fuels creates pollution. |
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Where
does the energy of nuclear reactions come from? Is nuclear
energy safe? Renewable? |
Big
Idea |
The
process used to power nuclear reactors is called fission.
This involves the splitting of large, unstable atoms
into smaller ones, which generates a lot of heat, as
well as dangerous nuclear waste.
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Big Idea
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Big
Idea
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Big
Idea
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Big
Idea
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What
are the underlying physics principles in biomedical imaging
and how do they inform individuals on use of imaging? |
Big
Idea |
Biomedical
imaging has allowed great advances in diagnosis, but no
single technique is adequate to address all issues. It
is important to understand the underlying physical principles
in order to appreciate the diagnostic possibilities of
each method. |
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