The Keepers of the Gate Challenge
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Students are presented with a real-life problem as a challenge to investigate, research and solve. Specifically, they are asked to investigate why salt water helps a sore throat, and how engineers apply this understanding to solve other problems. Students read medical journal articles and watch a TEDx Talk to learn more about nanotechnology applications. After students reflect and respond to the challenge question, they conduct the associated activity to perform journaling and brainstorming.
The ability to identify a problem and work with others to determine a solution is the core of the engineering design process. Students use their problem-solving abilities and team brainstorm session to figure out how they will solve the challenge: designing an experiment to test their hypothesis. Students recognize a problem and work through different channels to find a way to solve it. Additionally, students learn about bionanotechnology, a field of study that advances biomedical engineering technology.
After this lesson, students should be able to:
- Define nanotechnology, nanoscience and biomedical engineering.
- Explain how quantum dots are an example of nanotechnology used to detect cancer.
- Define the challenge associated with this unit.