DESCRIPTION
Advanced Technological Applications
Intended Audience
Grades 10-12 (Foundations of Technology highly recommended)
Course Overview
In the Advanced Technological Applications course, students
study about four components of the Designed World, including
Information Technology, Agriculture and Bio-related Technologies,
Medical, and Entertainment/Recreation. The Agriculture and
Biotechnologies unit explores how agricultural technologies
provide increased crop yields and allow adaptation to changing
and harsh environments, enabling the growth of plants and
animals for various uses. It also offers an analysis of the
various uses of biotechnology and the ethical considerations
of those uses. The Entertainment and Recreation unit provides
a study of technological entertainment and recreation systems,
with an examination of the differences between these technologies,
of how their use enhances human leisure-time performance,
and of the social, cultural, and environmental implications
of their usage. The Information Technologies unit examines
how technology facilitates the gathering, manipulation, storage,
and transmission of data, and how this data can be used to
create useful products. It also provides students with opportunities
for developing communications systems that can solve technological
problems. The Medical Technologies Unit provides an analysis
of how medical technologies are used to increase the quality
and length of human life, and how increased use of technology
carries potential consequences, which require public debate.
Students will also examine tools and devices used to repair
and replace organs, prevent disease, and rehabilitate the
human body.
Course Length
36 weeks
Connections
The Advanced Technological Applications course has been designed
as an advanced study for students engaged in themed academies
and general technology studies that lead to the capacity to
understand how technology’s development, control, and
use is based on design constraints, and human wants and needs.
The structure of the course challenges students to use design
processes so that they can think, plan, design and create
solutions to engineering and technological problems. Students
are actively involved in the organized and integrated application
of technological resources, engineering concepts, and scientific
procedures. Students address the complexities of technology
that stem from designing, developing, using, and assessing
technological systems. In developing a functional understanding
of technology, students comprehend how human conditions and
personal preferences drive technological design and problem
solving. Actively engaged in making and developing, using,
and managing technological systems, students better understand
the role of systems in meeting specific purposes. Students
are able to assess and understand the behavior and operation
of basic technological systems in different contexts. Students
extend and transfer their knowledge of systems to new and
emerging applications by the time they graduate from high
school.
