Oh, no! I’ve dropped my phone! Most of us have experienced the panic of watching our phones slip out of our hands and fall to the floor. We’ve experienced the relief of picking up an undamaged phone and the frustration of the shattered screen. This common experience anchors learning in the Contact Forces unit as students explore a variety of phenomena to figure out, “Why do things sometimes get damaged when they hit each other?”

Student questions about the factors that result in a shattered cell phone screen lead them to investigate what is really happening to any object during a collision. They make their thinking visible with free-body diagrams, mathematical models, and system models to explain the effects of relative forces, mass, speed, and energy in collisions. Students then use what they have learned about collisions to engineer something that will protect a fragile object from damage in a collision. They investigate which materials to use, gather design input from stakeholders to refine the criteria and constraints, develop micro and macro models of how their solution is working, and optimize their solution based on data from investigations. Finally, students apply what they have learned from the investigation and design to a related design problem.

A Google Drive folder with 8.1.2, 8.1.4 phenomenon-based, 5E lessons that align to the SEEd standards. Lesson folders include lesson plans, a slideshow, and supporting materials for teaching the lesson to your students. Students will obtain information and engage in argument about how properties of plastics provide structure and function. Students also investigate how chemical reactions create polymers that result in plastics and what natural resources are used in making synthetic materials.

A Google Drive folder with 8.2.1, 8.2.2, 8.2.3 phenomenon-based, 5E lessons that align to the SEEd standards. Lesson folders include lesson plans, a slideshow, and supporting materials for teaching the lesson to your students. Students explore energy transfer in kinetic and potential energy.

A Google Drive folder with 8.2.4, 8.2.5 phenomenon-based, 5E lessons that align to the SEEd standards. Lesson folders include lesson plans, a slideshow, and supporting materials for teaching the lesson to your students. By visiting stations and viewing simulations students will develop an understanding of the relationship between wave structure and energy. Students will take this understanding further as they compare how sound and light waves travel noting how they are similar and how they are different.

A Google Drive folder with 8.3.1, 8.3.2, 8.3.3 phenomenon-based, 5E lessons that align to the SEEd standards. Lesson folders include lesson plans, a slideshow, and supporting materials for teaching the lesson to your students. Students will use investigations to explore why we need oxygen, learning about the process of cellular respiration and photosynthesis. Students will analyze what happens to an ecosystem when photosynthesis and respiration are not balanced.

A Google Drive folder with 8.4.4 phenomenon-based, 5E lessons that align to the SEEd standards. Lesson folders include lesson plans, a slideshow, and supporting materials for teaching the lesson to your students. Students will analyze data and use models to understand how EarthÕs mean surface temperature is increasing, the causes for this increase, and the effect increasing temperatures have on EarthÕs systems.

A Google Drive folder with 8.4.2, 8.4.3 phenomenon-based, 5E lessons that align to the SEEd standards. Lesson folders include lesson plans, a slideshow, and supporting materials for teaching the lesson to your students. Students use articles and datasets to evaluate water supply and demand in Utah. After building an understanding of water as a limited resource in a state with a growing population, students design a tool or process for conserving water.

This lesson explores the challenges the United States faced as a result of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, and examines the governmentâ"s response through the lens of protection and civil liberties. Students will consider the long-term effects of the emergency measures, their consequences and constitutionality, and how they might inform the balance between security and liberty today.

The anniversaries of the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, and the signing of the Constitution on September 17, 1787, provide us an opportunity to reflect upon who we are as Americans, examine our most fundamental values and principles and affirm our commitment to them, and evaluate progress toward the realization of American ideals and propose actions that might narrow the gap between these ideals and reality. These lessons are designed to accomplish these goals.

Stephanie Howell posted this a few weeks ago and I thought, "What a great way to connect with students at the beginning of the year and then throughout the year!" Using her template, a Google add-on called Autocrat, and her video tutorial, you can set up a Google Form/Sheet to automatically send students a digital birthday card throughout the year. It takes about 20 minutes to set up but then it runs automatically throughout the year!

Students will explore the vice of ambition in a constitutional republic and civil society in this lesson on civic virtue.  Students will examine the difference between self-serving ambition and noble ambition, and then explore the character and career of Aaron Burr. Burr engaged in various machinations to establish an empire in the West and was put on trial for treason.  Students will analyze a historical narrative, discussion guide, and various activities to explore the effect of self-serving ambition in a constitutional republic and on civil society.

Use this lesson with the Mercy Otis Warren Narrative and the Judith Sargent Murray Primary Source "On the Equality of the Sexes" to allow students to discuss gender roles and expectations in the founding period.

In air transportation, efficiency is time and time is money. Even small delays in the schedules of passenger airplanes result in lost time for both air carriers and their passengers. During any passenger flight, there are two time-consuming operations that depend mostly on human behavior: boarding and disembarking the aircraft.

This lesson examines the beginnings of the women’s suffrage movement as an outgrowth of the abolitionist movement. Students will learn about key figures who were involved in both movements and analyze primary source documents to compare abolitionist and women’s suffrage arguments.

Students examine elements of Abraham Lincoln's life in this lesson based on the PBS series History Detectives. Using primary source documents, students should have a better understanding of who Lincoln was as a person and leader.

This primary source set includes documents and images from the life of Abraham Lincoln. A teacher guide is included to assist educators in utilizing the primary sources in their instruction.

The "Great Writ" or habeas corpus has been an essential civil liberty guaranteed since Magna Carta. In listing powers denied to Congress, the Constitution notes that "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it." In 1861, Abraham Lincoln invoked this power of Congress—which was not in session—to suspend habeas corpus in certain areas. The next year, as he believed the civil justice system was inadequate to deal with the rebellion, he expanded the suspension throughout the United States and established military tribunals to try citizens charged with disloyalty. In this lesson, students explore Lincolnâ"s suspension of habeas corpus and constitutional issues surrounding it.

Presidents Buchanan, Lincoln, and Johnson believed that the Constitution protected the institution of slavery. Lincoln came to the conclusion that, in order to preserve the Constitution and the Union it created, he must apply a new understanding of the principles on which the nation was built. The time had come to bring the nationâ"s policies in line with the of the Declaration of Independence that "…all men are created equal…" In this lesson, students will analyze Abraham Lincolnâ"s views on slavery and the Constitution as evidenced in the Emancipation Proclamation.

This lesson traces Lincoln's political life during a time of constitutional crisis. It examines Lincoln's ideas and decisions regarding slavery and the use of presidential power to preserve the Union.