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This document is intended to be a complete teaching curriculum, not just a guide or an outline. The curriculum is composed of units, which contain lessons and activities. The resource guide materials are integrated, via links, into the curriculum to make it easier for instructors to have access to the teaching tools they need.
Each Unit begins with: Concepts, an Anticipatory Set, Essential Questions, a list of the Lessons included in the Unit, and a description of Unit Evaluations. The Concepts are the broad learning objectives for the unit. The intent of the Essential Questions, in combination with the Anticipatory Set, is to create a framework for students to focus their learning. Course specific projects can be developed by the students to solve problems posed by the questions. The Essential Questions and the Anticipatory set should be communicated to the students at the beginning of every Unit to establish with the students the focus of the unit’s learning objectives.
Each Unit is composed of lessons. Included in the Lessons are: Concepts (specific to this Lesson), Performance Objectives with aligned Mathematics, Science and Technology National Standards, an Anticipatory Set, Key Terms, Key Questions, an Activity Guide (a Day-by-Day Lesson plan), in addition to the resources available to the instructor (Word Documents, PowerPoint presentations, and textbook references). Each Lesson is to begin with the instructor presenting the Lesson’s Anticipatory Set and Key Questions to the students for them to think about, and then develop solutions to, at the end of the Lesson. Through them, students focus their thoughts, learn skills, and apply those skills to solve problems, a key tenet of project-based learning.
This curriculum is designed to be taught to high school students within a “typical” high school schedule. This means that a class which meets each day for 40 minutes, 175 days a year should be able to cover the content of this course. Some minor adjustments will need to be made by those schools that teach under a “double block” system. For the most part this will simply entail combining two “days” worth of activities into one.
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