In this lesson, “Why Can’t You Leave Me Alone?” students explore the selective pressures that led to the evolution of parenting behavior in Dentrobatidae, or Poison Dart Frogs.
How can human-caused changes to the environment impact human health?
This ETP was inspired by the research from Susanne Sokolow and Giulio De Leo along with other members of the De Leo Lab.
The contamination of water and soil by heavy metals poses a serious environmental problem with severe consequences for health.
This lesson is about catalysts. Catalysts speed up chemical reactions without being used up. The principles of catalysis are important in industrial processes, environmental remediation, and most importantly, sustain all of life through diverse biological processes.
Fractionation is an important part in refining petroleum into gasoline or any other petroleum based product. Oil refineries separate petroleum based on their densities. There is both light oil and heavy oil processing units in a refinery.
Into The Blue Investigation is a hands-on collaborative lab activity where students use their knowledge of chemistry and the scientific method to determine the reactants, products and type of a chemical reaction.
Reactions are vital to human functions and synthesis of materials. Sometimes reactions happen too slowly, so a catalyst is introduced to speed the reaction along. Sometimes reactions don’t happen easily so a catalyst is introduced to make the reaction occur.
EXtreme Environment Systems Lab (XLab) develops systems for operation within extreme harsh environments. Researchers in the XLab investigate the synthesis of temperature tolerant, chemically resistant and radiation-hardened wide bandgap semiconductor thin films and nanostructures.
In this lesson, the students develop a synthesis to make biodiesel from vegetable oils. Students convert canola oil, a common vegetable oil found in kitchen, to biodiesel. The conversion involves a transesterification reaction of a triglyceride with methanol to produce biodiesel and glycerol.