Charlotte Teachers Institute

In this unit, scholars will explore how the worlds of chemistry, biology, energy and earth history are woven together by focusing on fluorescence in its many forms. We will let the question “How do things glow and why?” lead us down this path of discovery. Using academic articles, documentary style videos, and hands on activities scholars will be able to relate the ideas to everyday life. The idea of glowing throughout nature that has led to mimicry in our technology use will be displayed by several videos that will show scholars things they are otherwise not able to experience live. However, some activities will be performed in the lab to give students direct understanding of the proximity of this information. This unit corresponds with North Carolina standards on ecosystems, earth systems, energy, matter, biotechnology, and evolution. The culmination of this unit will give students the ability to create a project using at least 3 of the standards included to explain their interdependency on one another using fluorescence.