OpenSciEd High School

In this unit, students investigate the 30 by 30 initiative, a proposal to protect 30% of US lands and waters by 2030, and the reasons humans engage in conservation. Students use the Serengeti National Park as a case study to figure out ecosystem and conservation principles and apply those understandings to conservation dilemmas in the US.

Through investigations with complex data sets and hands-on simulations, students figure out how limiting factors impact carrying capacity, how group behavior impacts survival, and how biodiversity supports ecosystem resilience. By engaging with real-world conservation dilemmas and exploring various interest-holder perspectives, students identify the trade-offs humans make as they manage natural resources to support human society as well as the natural systems we live in.

This unit is designed to help students build a deeper understanding of the flow of matter and energy within ecosystems and the cycling of carbon on a global scale due to increased fires. Students read about mysterious arctic fires popping up near the burn scars of old fires and do a visual inquiry to obtain more information about what is happening with matter and energy in these arctic fire systems. To figure out how these fires can burn under ice and release so much carbon dioxide, students explore the interactions between peat, permafrost, decomposers, the sun, and other components of the system by investigating burning fuels, measuring the rate of decomposition and photosynthesis under different conditions. Students are motivated to see if they can generalize this phenomenon to other systems and the effect of increased carbon dioxide on the atmosphere. Students quantitatively model how matter and energy flow through different earth systems and different levels within an ecosystem. Finally, students use what they have figured out about positive feedback effects to design solutions to disrupt that flow of matter and energy in communities they care about.

Who gets cancer and why? What can we do about it? This unit is designed to deepen student understanding of inheritance and variation of traits through an exploration of cancer as a phenomenon. In the first lesson set, students explore the genetic basis of cancer by investigating what cancer is and how mutations that can increase risk for cancer occur. While there are many genes implicated in cancer, the unit focuses on p53, a tumor suppressor gene that is involved in many different cancers. In Lesson Set 2, students investigate cancer caused by mutations that occur throughout our lifetimes, inherited mutations, and how the environment can cause mutations. In the third lesson set, students investigate additional factors that explain differences across the US in both instances of cancer and mortality, access and feasibility of treatment options, and explore the role of health navigator as a way to advocate for and help support friends and family that may be experiencing cancer.

This unit on natural selection and evolution of populations focuses on the phenomenon of increasing urbanization around the world and the impact of that change on nonhuman populations. Students investigate case studies that investigate fragmentation, poison, and proximity to humans as selection pressures that affect the relative fitness of individuals with particular anatomical, physiological, and behavioral traits in a population. Through investigations with complex data sets, they figure out how genetic diversity in a population allows populations to adapt to changes encountered in urban environments.

Students apply their knowledge of evolution by natural selection to explain why small, fragmented populations can be more vulnerable to change than large populations. They investigate the effectiveness of various human-engineered designs in reducing the effects of fragmentation on nonhuman populations. Students apply their knowledge to evaluate proposed design solutions for urban growth in Buckeye, Arizona, one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States. They discuss criteria to balance protecting biodiversity with human needs in the area.

This unit propose a variety of ideas, but it seems like melting polar ice is a likely cause for this global phenomenon. Uncertainty and student concern for the people impacted motivate unit investigations that help students better understand the matter and energy flows that underlie a global phenomenon like polar ice melt and sea level rise.

Historical data, hands-on investigations, and typical early-year math (like unit conversions) help students establish the mechanisms that cause sea level rise and estimate its potential impact. Through investigations, simulations, and system models, students figure out how decreasing carbon dioxide emissions and two geoengineering solutions (applying glass microbeads to polar ice and protecting glaciers from warm water with berms) could help slow polar ice melt, protecting coastal communities. As they do so, they
1) begin developing the science practices needed in a chemistry classroom,
2) build a particle-level, quantifiable understanding of thermodynamics, and
3) consider how human activity results in particle-level changes with global implications

This unit propose a variety of ideas, but it seems like melting polar ice is a likely cause for this global phenomenon. Uncertainty and student concern for the people impacted motivate unit investigations that help students better understand the matter and energy flows that underlie a global phenomenon like polar ice melt and sea level rise.

Historical data, hands-on investigations, and typical early-year math (like unit conversions) help students establish the mechanisms that cause sea level rise and estimate its potential impact. Through investigations, simulations, and system models, students figure out how decreasing carbon dioxide emissions and two geoengineering solutions (applying glass microbeads to polar ice and protecting glaciers from warm water with berms) could help slow polar ice melt, protecting coastal communities. As they do so, they
1) begin developing the science practices needed in a chemistry classroom,
2) build a particle-level, quantifiable understanding of thermodynamics, and
3) consider how human activity results in particle-level changes with global implications.

This unit is designed to help students build a deeper understanding of atomic structure and atomic-scale force interactions through exploration of phenomena surrounding lightning and other static interactions. Students engage with stories and data about lightning and investigate a similar phenomenon in water droppers. They further investigate static interactions with various materials, including sticky tape, digging down to the subatomic level. Students apply these ideas back to lightning and further investigate force interactions, developing Coulomb’s law and ideas about polarization that can be applied to other phenomena. They identify electric fields as the source of the large energy transfers in lightning and explain lightning’s sudden behavior using ionization. They consider why structures made of certain materials provide protection from lightning and investigate why bodies of water, most of which contain dissolved salts, are particularly dangerous during storms. Finally, students develop a consensus model and transfer their understandings to the phenomena of airplane radomes and conducting gels used to simulate brains.

This unit is designed to deepen student understanding of atomic structure, trends on the periodic table, and how atomic-level interactions influence bulk-scale properties. The unit focuses on what substances we would need to find, make, and recycle in order to successfully live and work beyond Earth, or in space. Lesson Set 1 has students investigate properties of different liquids and their interactions with surface materials. Students use this information to predict which liquid or event resulted in a land formation on Earth, the Moon, or Mars. Lesson set 2 has students fully develop atomic structure and use patterns in how different elements interact with each other to build out the periodic table. Students then are able to relate bulk-scale properties to atomic-scale interactions, like electronegativity. Students continue to connect the atomic- and bulk-scale properties in Lesson Set 3. They use the law of conservation of matter as they balance chemical equations. In Lesson Set 4, students focus on how we can recycle substances by investigating how differences in the structures of the substance affect our ability to recycle it into different substances.

This unit is designed to build a deeper understanding about chemical reactions by exploring reversible reactions through exploration of ocean acidification. Students watch case videos, analyze data, and read about how movement of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to the ocean makes the ocean more acidic. They consider how oyster die-offs may affect communities that rely on oysters for a food source. Students break down this large scale problem into a few key subproblems so they can use chemistry to try to solve them. They figure out how changes in concentration of H+ ions in water leads to changes in water pH. They use their knowledge of chemical reactions and mathematical thinking (stoichiometry) to determine the amounts of a substance they could use to neutralize acidic water. Students consider engineering trade-offs, criteria, and constraints to use chemistry to develop a design solution at a specific site to address oyster die-offs. They apply their thinking in a culminating task around increasing rates of ammonia fertilizer.

How can chemistry help us evaluate fuels and transportation options to benefit the Earth and our communities? This unit is designed to help students figure out ways to address climate change, first introduced in the first unit of the course. Students engage with information about different fuels used for transportation. They figure out what is happening in combustion reactions in gasoline, diesel, and biofuel engines, but are unsure where the energy is actually coming from. These use magnet marbles and simulations to figure it out and eventually quantify how much energy is released. They shift their focus toward engineering considerations and consider fuel options that are not carbon-based: electric vehicles, hydrogen, and uranium. They conclude the unit by evaluating a variety of fuels and other transportation solutions for a specific transportation goal. In doing so they develop nuanced arguments for a mix of transportation options to help address environmental, safety, and other concerns.

How can we design more reliable systems to meet our communities’ energy needs? This unit is designed to introduce students to the concept of energy transfer in a relevant and grounded context: the Texas power crisis of February 2021. Students read articles and wonder about the complex social, environmental, and physical realities that led to such a crisis. They figure out how energy transfers between systems from a generator to our communities, and what makes an energy source reliable. This allows the class to model and explain what happened in Texas at multiple scales, from the electrons in the wires to the power companies making difficult decisions to maintain stability. Students consider engineering tradeoffs, criteria, and constraints inherent in making decisions about our energy systems, and apply them in a culminating task: design a reliable energy solution that meets our communities' needs, as articulated by interviews with friends and family members. The task is designed to give students the tools to speak up in their local and global community for a better energy future, one that aligns with their own values, and those of their families.

This unit is designed to help students build an intuitive understanding of the relationship between energy transfer and unbalanced forces as they explore science ideas related to plate tectonics, radioactivity, convection, and rock formation.

Students read about a crack that opened up suddenly in the Afar region of Ethiopia in 2005, accompanied by earthquakes and volcanos. They compare this to other earthquake events that occur in North America. This prompts them to model the events that occurred before, during, and after the crack was discovered. They figure out that changes in the structure of matter involve unbalanced forces and energy transfer, and use this idea to explain earthquakes and volcanoes at plate boundaries. They explore Earth’s interior using tomography and modeling, including radioactivity, to explain the unbalanced forces driving changes in Earth’s crust. They then investigate the interactions happening at plate boundaries and the nature of the relationship between mass and forces on the movement of tectonic plates to explain the past, present, and potential future of the Afar region. Finally, students apply these ideas in a transfer task to explain why a rift similar to the rift in the Afar region failed to create an ocean in the middle of North America 1.1 billion years ago.

This unit is designed to introduce students to the concept of momentum and Newton’s second law in an intuitive and grounded context. The learning is anchored by a puzzling set of patterns in traffic collision data over time: while overall, vehicle fatalities have been decreasing steadily for decades, the trend appears to have reversed, with both collisions and fatalities increasing. This phenomenon provides the context in which to investigate the physical relationships among mass, velocity, momentum, force, time, and acceleration, basic physical quantities that provide the foundation for the study of mechanics. Students will analyze statistics on vehicle collisions, analyze the motion of vehicles stopping short, and model vehicle collisions as part of an engineering task to reduce the chances of injury in a collision by testing and evaluating solutions that could change force interactions in the system.

This unit is designed to introduce students to the motion of objects in our solar system through the perspectives of matter, force, and energy. The learning is anchored by the appearance of a large fireball in the sky over Siberia in 2013 (the Chelyabinsk meteor). This phenomenon provides the context in which to investigate how and why objects from space sometimes collide with Earth. To figure this out, students apply the concepts of Newton’s universal law of gravitation, orbital motion, energy transfer with gravitational fields, and the history of Earth.

This unit begins with a news article about the unconventional use of microwave ovens to store electronics. Students are motivated to test the behavior of a Bluetooth speaker playing music from a device inside the oven when it is not running. They also test what happens when it runs and heats up food. This phenomenon sets the stage for exploring wave behavior, the interactions of matter with electromagnetic radiation, and how we can use these interactions in different technologies to digitize, store and transfer information. ​​Throughout the unit, students use simulations to model field interactions and energy transfer through electromagnetic radiation. They conduct investigations using the microwave oven to explore how different materials interact with microwave radiation, and how the structure of this device affects energy transfer. Students explain how the frequency and amplitude of electromagnetic radiation affects its interactions with matter and evaluate the wave and photon models of electromagnetic radiation. Students obtain and communicate information about the uses of electromagnetic radiation, its safety, and methods of protection. They apply these ideas in a culminating task to evaluate whether 5G technology is safe.

This unit is anchored by historical accounts of stars that suddenly appear and disappear shortly later. Students wonder about how some stars appear unchanging while these stars change so drastically within such a short period of time. That makes students wonder why stars shine and what could cause stars to change. They organize their questions regarding matter, energy, and forces and decide to look more closely at the places in the sky where these historical events took place using modern technology. In Lesson Set 1 (Lessons 2-5), students investigate photos and spectra of the remnants of these events and then develop two sets of research questions to investigate in small groups before coming together to come to consensus in Lesson 5 around the fusion and the lifecycle of stars. Students’ small-group internet research is scaffolded by a set of tools introduced strategically across the unit: the Planning for Obtaining Information Tool, the Obtaining Information Tool, and the Evaluating Sources of Information Tool.