In a very hands-on activity, students observe and feel the differences between two cleaning methods, with and without hand soap, using coffee grounds to represent "dirt."Most of the dirt and bacteria on our hands is encased in a thin layer of oil, so because of the properties of oil and water, cleaning your hands with water alone has little effect when trying to remove the dirt. This activity demonstrates the importance of using a surfactant, such as hand soap, when washing your hands.

The purpose of this activity is to demonstrate how aircrafts have decreased the amount of time it takes to transport people and cargo. Students will compute the time it takes to travel between two cities for several modes of transportation including trucks, trains and airplanes. Students will also do some critical thinking to determine why airplanes are not always used.

A freshman composition textbook used by the English Department of Virginia Western Community College (VWCC) in Roanoke, Virginia. It aligns with ENG 111, the standard first-year composition course in the Virginia Community College System (VCCS). The ten chapter headings are:

1. Chapter 1 - Critical Reading
2. Chapter 2 - Rhetorical Analysis
3. Chapter 3 - Argument
4. Chapter 4 - The Writing Process
5. Chapter 5 - Rhetorical Modes
6. Chapter 6 - Finding and Using Outside Sources
7. Chapter 7 - How and Why to Cite
8. Chapter 8 - Writing Basics: What Makes a Good Sentence?
9. Chapter 9 - Punctuation
10. Chapter 10 - Working With Words: Which Word is Right?

This book was created by the English faculty and librarians of VWCC using Creative Commons -licensed materials and original contributions.

With so much information at our fingertips, students learn what it means to "give credit" when using content they find online. Taking on the role of a detective, students learn why it's important to give credit and the right ways to do it when they use words, images, or ideas that belong to others.

Students observe demonstrations, and build and evaluate simple models to understand the greenhouse effect, the role of increased greenhouse gas concentration in global warming, and the implications of global warming theory for engineers, themselves and the Earth. In an associated literacy activity, students learn how a bill becomes law and research global warming legislation.

Spatial visualization is the study of two- and three-dimensional objects and the practice of mental manipulation of objects. Spatial visualization skills are important in a range of subjects and activities like mathematics, physics, engineering, art and sports! In this lesson, students are introduced to the concept of spatial visualization and measure their spatial visualization skills by taking the provided 12-question quiz. Following the lesson, students complete the four associated spatial visualization activities and then re-take the quiz to see how much their spatial visualization skills have improved.

Students make two different formulations of imitation Silly Putty with varying degrees of cross-linking. They witness how changes in the degree of cross-linking influence the putty properties.

In this game, students are assigned different immigrant identities and advance based on their access to economic opportunity and religious, political, and social liberties at different times in U.S. history.

In this activity, students familiarise themselves with the concept of a map by observing and describing maps, and drawing a map from an aerial photograph. They understand that any location on Earth is described by two numbers, latitude and longitude. The notion of scale and ratio is also explored.

Working as a team, students discover that the value of pi (3.1415926...) is a constant and applies to all different sized circles. The team builds a basic robot and programs it to travel in a circular motion. A marker attached to the robot chassis draws a circle on the ground as the robot travels the programmed circular path. Students measure the circle's circumference and diameter and calculate pi by dividing the circumference by the diameter. They discover the pi and circumference relationship; the circumference of a circle divided by the diameter is the value of pi.

Students learn about one-axis rotations, and specifically how to rotate objects both physically and mentally to understand the concept. They practice drawing one-axis rotations through a group exercise using cube blocks to create shapes and then drawing those shapes from various x-, y- and z-axis rotation perspectives on triangle-dot paper (isometric paper). They learn the right-hand rule to explore rotations of objects. A worksheet is provided. This activity is part of a multi-activity series towards improving spatial visualization skills.

Long perceived as a recluse who wrote purely in isolation, Emily Dickinson in reality maintained many dynamic correspondences throughout her lifetime and specifically sought out dialogues on her poetry. These correspondences"”both professional and private"”reveal a poet keenly aware of the interdependent relationship between poet and reader.

Students work as biomedical engineers to find liquid solutions that can clear away polyvinyl acetate polymer "blood clots" in model arteries (made of clear, flexible tubing). Teams create samples of the "blood clot" polymer with different concentrations to discover the concentration of the model clot and then test a variety of liquids to determine which most effectively breaks down the model blood clot. Students learn the importance of the testing phase in the engineering design process, because they are only given one chance to present the team's solution and apply it to the model blood clot.

Students learn how the sun can be used for energy. They learn about passive solar heating, lighting and cooking, and active solar engineering technologies (such as photovoltaic arrays and concentrating mirrors) that generate electricity. Students investigate the thermal energy storage capacities of test materials. They learn about radiation and convection as they build a model solar water heater and determine how much it can heat water in a given amount of time. In another activity, students build and compare the performance of four solar cooker designs. In an associated literacy activity, students investigate how people live "off the grid" using solar power.

This lesson introduces students to three of the six simple machines used by many engineers: the lever, the pulley, and the wheel-and-axle. In general, engineers use the lever to magnify the force applied to an object, the pulley to lift heavy loads over a vertical path, and the wheel-and-axle to magnify the torque applied to an object. The mechanical advantage of these machines helps determine their ability to make work easier or make work faster.

The Levitating Astronaut activity uses the amazing power of magnets to help children learn about magnetism and gravity.

This course provides an overview of the distinctive features which distinguish sound categories of languages of the world. Theories which relate these categories to their acoustic and articulatory correlates, both universally and in particular languages are covered. Models of word recognition by listeners, features, and phonological structure are also discussed. In addition, the course offers a variety of perspectives on these issues, drawn from Electrical Engineering, Linguistics and Cognitive Science.

Leyendas y arquetipos del Romanticismo español is an introduction to nineteenth-century Spanish literature with a thematic focus on legends and archetypes. It presents Romanticism in the context of nineteenth-century literary and social movements. It is designed as a first anthology for intermediate Spanish students at American universities. Although brief, it includes poetry, drama in verse and short story. The works have been selected for their literary interest and the social importance of their themes. They are all by canonical authors.
The Prologue and introductions to the authors and texts often utilize circumlocution to facilitate comprehension, and include concrete examples of the concepts presented. The author biographies are brief and should not be used as study materials, but rather as starting points for students’ own exploration. Many students prefer following their own interests when researching author biographies, and the internet makes accessible a plethora of bibliographic resources, such as the Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, the Centro Virtual Cervantes of the Cervantes Institute, or the Biblioteca Digital Hispánica of the Spanish National Library. Student participation in the selection of topics and sources emphasizes the investigative process and leads to richer class discussions.

Leyendas y arquetipos del Romanticismo español is an introduction to nineteenth-century Spanish literature with a thematic focus on legends and archetypes. It presents Romanticism in the context of nineteenth-century literary and social movements. It is designed as a first anthology for intermediate Spanish students at American universities. Although brief, it includes poetry, drama in verse and short story. The works have been selected for their literary interest and the social importance of their themes. They are all by canonical authors.

This course explores the history of the ideal of personal freedom with an eye towards contemporary debates over the pros and cons of the regulatory state. The first part of the course surveys the sociological and theological sources of the concepts of freedom and civil society, and introduces liberty's leading relatives or competitors: property, equality, community, and republicanism. The second part consists of a series of case studies in the rise of modern liberty and libertarianism: the abolition of slavery, the struggle for religious freedom, and the twentieth-century American civil liberties movement. In the last part of the course, we take up debates over the role of libertarianism vs. the regulatory state in a variety of contexts: counter-terrorism, health care, the financial markets, and the Internet.