This article describes a design activity that provides students with a solid understanding of the many issues involved with alternate energy system design. In this activity, students will be able to learn about electric vehicles and have the opportunity to design a way to recharge the batteries while the cars are parked in a commuter garage. The…

In many ways the field of renewable energy technology is being introduced to a society that has little knowledge or background with anything beyond traditional exhaustible forms of energy and power. Dotson (2009) noted that the real challenge is to inform and educate the citizenry of the renewable energy potential through the development of…

Novices to the design process often struggle at first to understand the various stages of design. Learning to design is a process not easily mastered, and therefore requires multiple levels of exposure to the design process. It is helpful if teachers are able to implement various entry-level design assignments such as reverse-engineering…

The laboratory the author had been assigned for his RET (Research Experience for Teachers) at Vanderbilt University is new and different from the one he had previously experienced. This summer he was assigned to the Microfluidics and Lab-on-a-chip laboratory to help research dielectrophoresis. As this is an emerging technology, there was not a lot…

Green is a question with varying answers and sometimes no answer at all. It is a question of location, resources, people, environment, and money. As green really has no end point, a teacher's goal should be to teach students to question and consider green. In this article, the author provides several useful metrics to help technology teachers…

Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of static images that creates the illusion of movement. This optical illusion is often called perception of motion, persistence of vision, illusion of motion, or short-range apparent motion. The phenomenon occurs when the eye is exposed to rapidly changing still images, with each image being changed…

At a high school level, sometimes students can perceive math as simply another step towards graduation and learn just what is needed to get by. If realistic examples were used more often in classroom settings, then teachable moments would happen--and that is where inspiration can be fostered. This article provides thoughts and ideas behind the…

Almost everything people have ever done has involved materials. Historical evidence indicates that "engineered materials" have been available and utilized for the benefit of humankind since the Neolithic period, beginning about 10,000 BC. Some of these materials have been in existence for thousands of years. At first, materials consisted of wood,…

Data acquisition and analysis are cornerstones for informed decision making about the environment. Facts and figures are vital to the practical application of systems and products. These data are collected through various means and organized into useful forms (i.e., visual imagery, datasets, and sounds). Whether collected by persons or obtained…

It is all about serving the customer. That is how capitalism plays out. It finds a market need and then creates a product or service to address that need. The Baby Boomer generation, all 76 million, will be retiring soon. Eventually, some may find it very hard to move about and do their routine food shopping. In this article, the author's…

Technological advances through mathematics and science have made possible the modification of boarding sports. This article discusses the development of sport technologies that use boards and also touches on the social and cultural effects of the new technologies. It identifies many new forms of sports equipment that were spawned from modifying…

One hears quite frequently how the arts continually suffer in the academic day. Many long-time technology education champions certainly know what this is all about; but there may be some ways to use technology education to bring the arts into the classroom. This article offers a series of activities and suggestions that will help students better…

Over the past several decades there has been a call to raise student technological literacy. To take such an abstract concept and produce a program that will increase student science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) literacy was not an easy task. However, it was accomplished. During the past two years many United States school…

Technology education has the means of becoming the catalyst for integrated content and curricula, especially in core academic areas, such as science and mathematics, where it has been found difficult to incorporate other subject matter. Technology is diverse enough in nature that it can be addressed by a variety of content areas, serving as a true…

This article describes a symposium which promotes technological literacy through science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The three-day symposium titled, "The Anderson, Oconee, Pickens Symposium on Teaching and Learning STEM Standards for the 21st Century," was held August 4-6, 2008 at the Tri-County Technical College…