Students learn about glaucoma its causes, how it affects individuals and how biomedical engineers can identify factors that trigger or cause this eye disease, specifically the increase of pressure in the eye. Students also learn how RFID technologies transfer energy through waves and how engineers apply their scientific understanding of waves, energy and sensors to develop devices that measure the pressure in the eyes of people with glaucoma. Students conclude by sketching their own designs for a pressure-measuring eye device, preparing them to conduct the associated activity in which they revise, prototype and evaluate their device designs made tangible with a 3D printer.

The Tippy Tap hand-washing station is an inexpensive and effective device used extensively in the developing world. One shortcoming of the homemade device is that it must be manually refilled with water and therefore is of limited use in high-traffic areas. In this activity, student teams design, prototype and test piping systems to transport water from a storage tank to an existing Tippy Tap hand-washing station, thereby creating a more efficient hand-washing station. Through this example service-learning engineering project, students learn basic fluid dynamic principles that are needed for creating efficient piping systems.

Inadequate water supplies and lack of sanitation facilities represent major hazards to the public health in many parts of the world. In spite of the International Water Supply Decade, (1980-1990) there are more people without facilities approaching minimum standards now than existed at the beginning of the program. Without improvements in these areas, there can be no hope that there will be an overall improvement in the health of the nations which constitute the Third World. Yet appropriate technologies do exist which can go a long way to ameliorate these problems. Simple, low cost projects can be built and maintained by village-based methods. These are being used in some countries and provide a basis for the improvement of living standards for the poorer people of the world. This is a practical course designed to demonstrate actual details of construction and provide a working knowledge of simple mechanisms involved in ventilating latrines and also on how simple pumps work. You should end with a good idea about how these tings work and how they can be maintained. During this class we will be discussing some of the problems arising from poor facilities in many developing countries. We will examine problems associated with solid waste disposal and see the enormity of the problem. We will come up with some suggestions about how to ameliorate the problems... There are few real solutions....

Students are presented with a biomedical engineering challenge: Breast cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer-related death among women and the American Cancer Society says mammography is the best early-detection tool available. Despite this, many women choose not to have them; of all American women at or over age 40, only 54.9% have had a mammogram within the past year. One reason women skip annual mammograms is pain, with 90% reporting discomfort. Is there a way to detect the presence of tumors that is not as painful as mammography but more reliable and quantifiable than breast self-exams or clinical breast exams? This three lesson/three activity unit is designed for first-year accelerated or AP physics classes. It provide hands-on activities to teach the concepts of stress, strain and Hooke's law, which students apply to solve the challenge problem.

Students learn how viruses invade host cells and hijack the hosts' cell-reproduction mechanisms in order to make new viruses, which can in turn attack additional host cells. Students also learn how the immune system responds to a viral invasion, eventually defeating the viruses -- if all goes well. Finally, they consider the special case of HIV, in which the virus' host cell is a key component of the immune system itself, severely crippling it and ultimately leading to AIDS. The associated activity, Tracking a Virus, sets the stage for this lesson with a dramatic simulation that allows students to see for themselves how quickly a virus can spread through a population, and then challenges students to determine who the initial bearers of the virus were.

In this service-learning engineering project, students follow the steps of the engineering design process to design a hearing testing device. More specifically, they design a prototype machine that can be used to test the peripheral vision of partially-blind, pre-verbal children. Students learn about the basics of vision and vision loss. They also learn how a peripheral vision tester for adults works (by testing the static peripheral vision in the four quadrants of the visual field with four controllable lights in specific locations). Then they modify the idea of the adult peripheral vision tester to make it usable for testing young children. The class designs and builds one complete prototype, working in sub-groups of four or five students each to build sub-components of the project design.

Presents a historical overview of the influence of water and sanitation on human health; types of water and sanitation facilities and equipment presently available and particularly suited to refugee populations displaced by war, famine, drought, and economic turmoil; and methodologies for assessing and quantifying water and sanitation needs.

Students discuss several human reproductive technologies available today pregnancy ultrasound, amniocentesis, in-vitro fertilization and labor anesthetics. They learn how each technology works, and that these are ways engineers have worked to improve the health of expecting mothers and babies.

Students are introduced to the concepts of the challenge question. First independently, and then in small groups, they generate ideas for solving the grand challenge introduced in the associated lesson: Your grandmother has a fractured hip and a BMD of -3.3. What medical diagnosis explains her condition? What are some possible causes? What are preventative measures for other family members? Students complete a worksheet that contains the pertinent questions, as well as develop additional questions of their own, all with the focus on determining what additional background knowledge they need to research. Finally, as a class, students compile their ideas, resulting in a visual as a learning supplement.

It's easy to worry about food: Are we eating the wrong stuff? What about people who don't have enough to eat? These talks examine the problems -- and some compelling solutions.

In this fiery and funny talk, New York Times food writer Mark Bittman weighs in on what's wrong with the way we eat now (too much meat, too few plants; too much fast food, too little home cooking), and why it's putting the entire planet at risk.

The aim of this lesson is to introduce the concept of Neutralization and its application in our daily lives. Students are encouraged to construct their knowledge of Neutralization through brainstorming sessions, experiments, and mind mapping. This video lesson presents a series of stories relating to Neutralization—beginning with a story of a girl being cured from a stomach ache with the help of Neutralization. Prerequisites for this lesson are knowledge of the basic concept of Neutralization, chemical equations and the pH indicator scale. The lesson will take about 50 minutes to complete, but you may want to divide into two classes if the activities require more time.

Student teams learn about and devise technical presentations on four reproductive technology topics pregnancy ultrasound, amniocentesis, in-vitro fertilization or labor anesthetics. Each team acts as a panel of engineers asked to make a presentation to a group of students unfamiliar with the reproductive technology. Each group incorporates non-lecture elements into its presentation for greater effectiveness. As students learn about the technologies, by creating a presentation and listening to other groups' presentations, they also learn more about the valuable skill of technical communications.

Tal Golesworthy is a boiler engineer — he knows piping and plumbing. When he needed surgery to repair a life-threatening problem with his aorta, he mixed his engineering skills with his doctors' medical knowledge to design a better repair job.

Can we break bad habits by being more curious about them? Psychiatrist Judson Brewer studies the relationship between mindfulness and addiction — from smoking to overeating to all those other things we do even though we know they're bad for us. Learn more about the mechanism of habit development and discover a simple but profound tactic that might help you beat your next urge to smoke, snack or check a text while driving.

إنها حقيقة: الحديث عن الحيض يجعل العديد من الناس غير مرتاحين. وهذا المحرم له تبعات: في الهند حيت أن ثلاثة من كل عشرة فتيات لا يعرفن حتى ما هو الحيض في وقت حدوث دورتهن الشهرية الأولى، والعادات المققيدة المتعلقة بهذه الدورة الشهرية تسبب أثارا نفسية ضارة على الفتيات الصغيرات. و بما أنها ترعرعت مع هذه المحرمات عرفت آديتي غوبتا أنها تريد مساعدة هؤلاء الفتيات الصغيرات و آبئهن و معلميهن للحديث براحة عن هذه الدورات الشهرية وبلا خجل. وهي تشاركنا في كيفية قيامها بذلك.

توقف عن فرك يدك على الإيدز، السرطان وإنفلونزا الطيور. أمراض القلب والأوعية الدموية تقتل أكير من كل شيء آخر مجتمعين -- وهي في الغالب يمكن تجنبها. د/ دين أورنيش يشرح كيف يمكن لتغيير المظام الغذائي إنقاذ الأرواح.