In this interactive exercise, students explore the normative and economic issues that arise from minimum wage increases. Students will encounter arguments for and against raising the minimum wage and will make a choice whether not to support an increase. The choices made will then yield results, which may lead to further problems requiring additional decisions. The exercise is designed to engage students in real-world decision-making processes. Students write an essay outlining their initial preconceptions about minimum wage increases, reflectively analyze their exercise decisions, and then articulate their current, more informed views on the issue.

In this lesson, students will tack barometric pressure, wind direction, temperature, and clouds. The clouds will record daily readings in these areas and attempt to formulate patterns to use in forecasting the weather based on these elements.

Over the course of the school year, students will collect data about the sun's position at a specific time of day, resulting in creating an analemma (a figure 8 that shows the path of the sun).Recording should be at least weekly. Students will make predictions about the next position based on patterns they have noticed. Classroom discussion will be directed toward the concepts of earth's tilt and the effect of the sun's rays on the planet: warmth, seasons, amount of daylight per day, etc.

In this lesson, students will determine the relationship between the number of carbons in an alkane chain and its boiling point. Students will complete a mathematical regression on data, then use that equation to extrapolate beyond the range of data.

In this activity, students will examine the three main factors that disrupt corals. Students will use a Geographic Information System (GIS) tool to evaluate threats on coral reefs, explain how certain fishing practices, pollution, and climate change can damage coral ecosystems, and describe the predicted consequences for coral reefs.

In this activity, students will model the movement of cargo in the bed of a truck in order to experience Newton's first law of motion. Students will be given eleven different scenarios that the truck and the cargo encounter. The students will predict where the cargo will be after the scenario is applied, explain their prediction in terms of Newton's first law of motion and then test and explain the results of the scenario.

In this lab activity, students are given a curved ramp and a sphere which is rolled down the ramp until it leaves the edge of the lab table horizontally and then are asked to predict where the sphere will land by making measurements and completing calculations.

In this lesson, students will learn about forest biomass and its role in carbon storage. They will compare field-collected data with results produced by a forest biomass model to understand the process and challenges scientists face when doing terrestrial carbon cycle research.

In this lesson, students will be able to understand how the fed, financial institutions and the public act and interact, and how monetary policy works through influencing money supply, credit access, and interest rates to impact aggregate demand and the economy. Students will learn and understand concepts such as Reserve Requirement, Actual Reserves, Required Reserves, Excess Reserves, Money Multiplier, Federal Funds Rate, Discount rate, Prime Rate, Open Market Operations, Term Auction Facility, Cyclical Asymmetry and the Liquidity Trap. At the completion of this activity, students should be able to understand how monetary policy works and the potential impact of monetary policy on the economy.

This simple activity gets students out of their seats and talking to each other while illustrating how the national unemployment rate and the civilian labor force participation rate are calculated. Through small group interaction and class discussion, students gain a better understanding of who is and who is not considered to be in the labor force and who is counted as being unemployed. Initially, students break into three groups and assume the role of various economic citizens: from the fully employed to the imprisoned. Once the entire class is reconvened, the metrics are calculated and topics such as discouraged workers, underemployment and reasons why the official unemployment rate may be underestimated are discussed.

In this activity, students will learn how to add force vectors. They will see the significance of direction when adding vector quantities.

This module is designed to teach students that the Phillips Curve, which shows a tradeoff between unemployment and inflation in the short run, is a theoretical concept that really exists in real life and is substantiated by real macroeconomic data. At the same time, it is hard for economist to prescribe the right Fiscal and/or Monetary policies to fight one problem, for fear of creating the other. Therefore, based on their findings, students will suggest the best policy for the most prevalent problem. Students will work with the St. Louis Federal Reserve FRED economic database to complete a written assignment on a different country that will be presented to the rest of the class.

In this activity, students will use quadrats located every 50 feet along line transects in two different habitats to determine the vegetation types present in each habitat. Habitats may include but are not limited to, prairie, upland grassland, early stage forests, mature (climax) forests, and coniferous forests. Vegetation types will be described as percent coverage of, grass, herbs, shrubs, and mature trees. Specific species of shrubs and trees found in each quadrat will be noted whenever possible. When the vegetation analysis is completed, live traps will be placed at each point along the transect for two consecutive nights. The number and species of small mammals (mice, moles, voles) caught and released will be recorded. Florescent dyes placed on the small mammals will determine their home range. Data analysis will attempt to determine if a correlation exists between vegetation type/abundance in each habitat and small mammal activity.

In this activity, students learn about the force of gravity and the factors that affect it. They will learn the universal gravitation equation and analyze it qualitatively. They will then use Excel to create a "gravity calculator" to calculate force of gravity and acceleration of two different objects if the user inputs the masses of the objects and the distance between them.

In this lesson, students will select, explore, and analyze satellite imagery. They will investigate the relationship between atmospheric carbon monoxide, a harmful gaseous pollutant, and aerosols, tiny solid airborne particles such as smoke from forest fires and dust from desert wind storms. Students will use ImageJ to animate a year of monthly images of aerosol data and then compare the animation to one created for monthly images of carbon monoxide data. Using NASA's Earth Observatory Image Composite Editor (ICE), they will display, graph, analyze, and evaluate variation and covariation in carbon monoxide and aerosols in Earth's atmosphere.

In this field lab, students will collect insects from two different habitats and use them to quantify the biodiversity of each habitat. Along a transect, students will sweep-net specimens from a reclaimed prairie site and the edge of a deciduous hardwood forest. Once the insects are collected, identified, and quantified, they will then use their data to calculate the biodivesrity of each habitat.

This experiment illustrates the value of exchange to students. Students each receive an initial allocation of candy which they are asked to rank in terms of the satisfaction it provides them. They are then allowed to engage in trading with other students. After each round of trading, students are asked to reevaluate the satisfaction they derive from the new set of candy that they have. Through this process, students see that they are made better off from exchange.

In this activity, students work in groups to find a "treasure" using directions from a treasure map that has been torn into sections. The directions are written as vectors.

In this activity, students experience and then physically analyze two different methods of lifting a bowling ball. Students must use and understand vectors to create a useful free body diagram and explain why one person can lift the bowling ball easier than two people (note: the two people are lifting the ball at a large angle from the normal). After completing this activity the students will be able to demonstrate the use of free body diagrams and vector analysis - in particular breaking vectors into components.

In this activity, students use a website to identify rocks based on their properties.