Electricity powers our modern world, but how often do we stop to think about where our electricity comes from when we turn on a lightswitch or use a hairdryer? This unit explores various concepts of energy as students discover how our electrical system works. Students will take on the role of systems engineers to solve the issue of frequent blackouts that are occurring in a fictional town called Ergstown. 

Students will learn to identify different forms of energy all around them, and how it gets converted from one form to another. They will work to discover how electrical systems work through hands-on experiences, readings, and simulations. Students will apart simple electronic devices to expose them to a variety of electronic components, and demystify electronics. They build basic electric circuits using a variety of materials and components, making their own conductors and switches, as well as their own projects. 

They move on to learn more about where electricity comes from, including renewable vs non-renewable energy and how a city power grid works, ultimately building their own energy source converter: a wind turbine!

In this unit, students dive deeper into the world of coding by making an interactive video game and a controller using the popular block-based programming language called Scratch and the peripheral attachment known as the “Makey Makey.”. They start by learning about the basic commands and command categories in Scratch, beginning a simple “chase” game with a main character controlled by the arrow keys. Next, they add more complex programs to the game, such as a score tally, countdown timer, and multiple obstacles on loops. After this, they learn about the category of games called side scrollers, and how programmers create the illusion of movement through animation and “scrolling” of scenery objects and obstacles. Then, students learn how to create multiple levels within their scrolling game. Finally, they apply all of those concepts to create their own interactive video game.

Once their game is complete, they begin learning about video game controllers. They are introduced to the Makey Makey, which functions as an external keyboard that you can easily attach alligator clips and wires to to control the inputs in various ways. They learn about conductivity by turning silly objects into conducting buttons. Finally, they design their own controller to pair with their video game.

Over the course of this unit, students investigate the role that animal senses, primarily vision, play in survival as they try to understand a realistic fictional problem with a real organism. They will be conservation biologists as they investigate why there is a decline in the number of Tokay geckos living in one area of a rainforest in the Philippines. Humans change the environments in which we live many ways—clearing forests to make roads and build houses, removing species of plants and animals that are dangerous to humans, installing lights to make it easier to see at night, and so on. Often these changes affect other species’ survival in unanticipated ways. Examples of this are changes humans make to the environment that impact how animals in the same environment are able to use their senses to get information. 

Throughout their investigations, students use an interactive digital simulation that allows them to explore two key ideas: how light travels in a way that allows an animal to see and how an animal’s internal structures work together to process information and form an image the animal can recognize. In addition, students engage in hands-on activities, reading, and discourse as they learn how animal eyes function, discovering that some animals see well in bright light and others see well in low light. 

In the last chapter of the unit, students design and complete their own investigations about human smell, hearing, or touch. Woven throughout the unit is a focus on the crosscutting concept of Structure and Function.