Transistors are the building blocks of modern electronic devices. Your cell phones, iPods, and computers all depend on them to operate. Thanks to today's microfabrication technology, transistors can be made very tiny and be massively produced. You are probably using billions of them while working with this activity now--as of 2006, a dual-core Intel microprocessor contains 1.7 billion transistors. The field effect transistor is the most common type of transistor. So we will focus on it in this activity.

Padlet is a free, online resource. For educators it only requires a simple setup, and allows for change in regards to privacy and other settings. For students, it provides a link and space for them to access anytime.

Storyboardthat.com is a website that allows students to use an electronic storyboard platform to create illustrations and graphics. This is a website that is free to use, and is a great way for students to visually demonstrate comprehension.

Storyboardthat.com is a website that allows students to use an electronic storyboard platform to create illustrations and graphics. This is a website that is free to use, and is a great way for students to visually demonstrate comprehension.

Storyboardthat.com is a website that allows students to use an electronic storyboard platform to create illustrations and graphics. This is a website that is free to use, and is a great way for students to visually demonstrate comprehension.

Storyboardthat.com is a website that allows students to use an electronic storyboard platform to create illustrations and graphics. This is a website that is free to use, and is a great way for students to visually demonstrate comprehension.

This is a set of three, one-page problems about calculating the volume of objects. Learners may calculate the volume of an asteroid, Vesta, or the stacking of satellites inside an atlas V rocket nose cone. Options are presented so that students may learn about the Dawn mission to asteroid Vesta through a NASA press release or about NASA's investigation of comets by viewing a NASA eClips video [5 min.]. This activity is part of the Space Math multi-media modules that integrate NASA press releases, NASA archival video, and mathematics problems targeted at specific math standards commonly encountered in middle school.

Students will learn about The Water Walker, Josephine Mandamin, and discuss and research topics related to the protection of our water sources. Students will then take their research and consider how advancements in technology over the past 50 years (specifically transportation and and business (shipping, manufacturing) have impacted the local water supplies.This lesson was created through a partnership between CodeVA and the Virginia Tribal Education Consortium (VTEC). 

This slide presentation looks at technology from a different perspective. Most often we view technology as something that is digital, but in this lesson we discover that technology is anything made by man that can help us - including computers, cell phones, scissors, glue, etc.
Students will be asked to decipher between technological items and non-technological items through a cut and sort (optional handout - link provided in slides), they will go on a classroom scavenger hunt to locate technological items, and they will write sentences about how their found items help us (documentation handout also included in slides).
The slides provide teacher notes and links to resources used.

Have fun exploring technology in your room!

Windmills have been used for hundreds of years to collect energy from the wind in order to pump water, grind grain, and more recently generate electricity. There are many possible designs for the blades of a wind generator and engineers are always trying new ones. Design and test your own wind generator, then try to improve it by running a small electric motor connected to a voltage sensor.