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Book Chapter
Eye in the Sky: An Introduction to GIS & Scale
New computer technologies allow us to examine scientific data at a variety of different scales from global to local. In this investigation students use Geographic Information Systems (GIS) as a tool to investigate different questions related to the e...
Book Chapter
Drops to the Ocean: A GIS Study of River Basins
Water is a critical element of life. It plays a crucial role at many scales from singles cells to huge river systems. In this investigation, students explore local, regional, and global river basins using GIS as a tool. The study begins with an exami...
Book Chapter
As science extends into the very large and the very small ends of the scale, the images of objects and materials lose recognizable contexts and can be very complex. New advances in microscopes and telescopes allow us to zoom in on very tiny and very ...
Book Chapter
That’s Hot! The Effect of Size on Rate of Heat Loss
Through the use of common household items such as aluminum pans and thermometers, students will investigate how the size and shape of an object affect the rate of heat loss from the object to the environment. This lesson is relevant to biology, as it...
Book Chapter
Sweet! Exploring Surface Area of Sugar Molecules
Two forces that are very familiar to us in our daily lives are gravity and adhesion. The force of gravity on an object, which we commonly refer to as the object’s weight, is proportional to the volume of the object. Adhesion or stickiness, on the o...
Book Chapter
Captivating Cubes: Investigating Surface Area-to-Volume Ratio
In this two-part activity, students investigate how surface area-to-volume ratios change with cube size. Students apply those calculations to explore how surface area-to-volume relationships limit the size of cells. Extensions of these activities pro...
Book Chapter
In this two-part activity, students make inferences about the relationships between egg size, incubation time, and bird size from data sets collected from hundreds of species of birds. Students will also investigate how an egg can exchange oxygen and...
Book Chapter
Could a bug ever be the size of a Volkswagen Beetle? Could a dragonfly be larger than a seagull? Movies often portray huge creatures that roam the Earth and sometimes terrorize humans. Could these scenarios actually happen, and if so, how? This activ...
Book Chapter
Across the different sciences one of the common challenges that researchers encounter is defining and measuring different variables. An essential part of that process is creating and using scales. In this investigation, students learn about a range o...
Book Chapter
Flying Foam: The Scale of Forces
The forces that are important for very large objects can be quite different than the forces that are important for very small objects. A planet is essentially unaffected by all but the gravitational force, whereas a molecule experiences mostly chemic...
Book Chapter
The same material may behave differently at different scales. These variations can become critical in understanding science at very large or very small scales. In this investigation, students use Styrofoam to explore how changes in size affect electr...
Book Chapter
Fractals: Self-Similar at Different Scales
Fractal geometry enables researchers to analyze complex shapes of natural objects and compare one system to another. It helps us define structure in new and useful ways. Moreover, if an object in a geological or biological context has fractal geometr...
Book Chapter
Screening My Calls: Scale and the Electromagnetic Spectrum
Light is just one type of electromagnetic radiation; it belongs to the visible portion of the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum. The other regions of the EM spectrum include everything from gamma rays to radio waves. They are all the same thing: electrom...
Book Chapter
Stringy Chemistry and States of Matter
Solids, liquids, and gases are familiar to students as the different states of matter. Why are some substances gases and some solid at room temperature? This exercise helps students explore the basic concepts behind intermolecular bonding and how it ...
Book Chapter
Our sensory organs are finely tuned instruments that not only detect but also measure different environmental inputs. In particular, our eyes, ears, and nose are extraordinary sensors. The tasks these organs face are incredibly challenging. Typical l...