Welcome to the VisTe Project. We hope you find these materials useful and appreciate your feedback. Each unit is organized such that it includes both introductory level and intermediate level projects.

UNITS

Communications Technology: Introduction to Visualization

Medical Technology: Imaging

This unit is focused on Medical Technologies of the Designed World - and Information and Communication Technologies of the Designed World. Students will learn about the history and societal ramifications of medical technology.

Biotechnology: The PCR

Transportation Technology: Visualizing Rocketry

This unit is centered on Information and Communication Technologies of the Designed World and Transportation Technologies. Students will learn basic aeronautical principles, the use of chemical reactions for rocket transport, and about the use of Newtonian physics and mathematical tools in rocket design.

Communications Technology: Introduction to 3D Modeling and Animation

Energy and Power Technology

This unit is focused on Energy and Power Technologies of the Designed World. Projects focus on forms of energy, law of conservation of energy, and the role that technological tools play in the transformation of energy from a non-useful form to a useful form. Students will also explore renewable and nonrenewable resources of energy.

Bioprocessing

This unit is focused on Agricultural and Related Biotechnologies of the Designed World. Students will learn about bioprocessing technology and how it is used to produce, and manufacture many different products for the industrial, pharmaceutical, food, and environmental sectors.

Prosthetics

This unit is focused on Medical Technologies of the Designed World. Students will learn about the history of prosthetics and will explore and solve some of the design problems associated with prosthetics construction. Students will also explore the societal implications of providing support for persons with disabilities as well as the engineering and design involved in creating that support.

Weather

This unit focuses on remote imaging technologies and data collection involved with global and local weather systems. Students will learn about image enhancement through the LUT (Luminosity),
image measurements, and image sequencing and comparison. This unit will contain recent weather information and data from Hurricane Katrina and Rita and their consequences on the southeast region. Students will study the technologies involved in hurricane tracking as well as the impacts on environments of a hurricane's landfall.

Careers

This unit presents information about careers through activities, some of which focus more globally on careers, while others have a more molecular or in-depth focus. The goal is for students to develop the skills necessary to research out various careers to determine the training or education that is required, as well as to locate geographical areas for which those careers are in demand. Students will learn about ways in which technology and technological advancements have impacted society, the workforce, and career availability. Students will also learn about different ways individuals can prepare for a career. For the careers that require a four-year college degree or higher, there is a project that focuses on researching colleges and college majors. In addition to learning about careers at a global level, students will also learn about how the design of a city acts to shape local workforce.

Nanotechnology

This unit will study nanotechnology, a term often used in a very general manner to refer to all aspects of nano. Nano, however, is truly a multidisciplinary field with individuals from fields such as chemistry, physics, biology, materials science, and engineering, all working to better understand and apply knowledge of objects that are nanoscale in size. The nanoscale dimension is a range from hundreds to tens of nanometers (0.1 - 100 nm) or 10 -9. To give some perspective of just how small a nanometer is, one meter equals one-billion nanometers. A human hair is roughly 50,000 nanometers across the tip.

Biometrics

Biometric tools encompass a wide range of biosecurity technologies which provide precise confirmation of an individual's identity through the use of that individual's own physical or behavioral characteristics. Physical characteristics include fingerprints, retinal scans, hand geometry, and facial features; and they are most often stable. Behavioral characteristics include voiceprints, signatures, and keystrokes; and they are influenced by a person's personality. Biometric tools are used for identification-determining who the person is, or verification-determining if the person is who they say they are. If used for identification, a measured characteristic is compared to a library of characteristics belonging to many people in order to find a match. It is often used in determining the identity of a suspect from crime scene information. If used for verification, a measured characteristic is compared to previously recorded data for that person. This method requires less processing power and time, and is often used for accessing places or information.