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A. Technology and Science
By the end of 12th grade, students should know that:
- Technological problems often create a demand for new scientific knowledge, and new technologies make it possible for scientists to extend their research in new ways or to undertake entirely new lines of research.
- Mathematics, creativity, logic and originality are all needed to improve technology.
- Technology usually affects society more directly than science because it solves practical problems and serves human needs (and may create new problems and needs).
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B. Design and Systems
By the end of 12th grade, students should know that:
- In designing a device or process, thought should be given to how it will be manufactured, operated, maintained, replaced, and disposed of and who will sell, operate, and take care of it.
- The value of any given technology may be different for different groups of people and at different points in time.
- Complex systems have layers of controls.
- Risk analysis is used to minimize the likelihood of unwanted side effects of a new technology.
- The more parts and connections a system has, the more ways it can go wrong.
- To reduce the chance of system failure, performance testing is often conducted using small-scale models, computer simulations, analogous systems, or just the parts of the system thought to be least reliable.
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C. Issues in Technology
By the end of 12th grade, students should know that:
- Social and economic forces strongly influence which technologies will be developed and used.
- Technological knowledge is not always as freely shared as scientific knowledge unrelated to technology.
- In deciding on proposals to introduce new technologies or to curtail existing ones, some key questions arise concerning alternatives, risks, costs, and benefits.
- The human species has a major impact on other species in many ways: reducing the amount of the earth's surface available to those other species, interfering with their food sources, changing the temperature and chemical composition of their habitats, introducing foreign species into their ecosystems, and altering organisms directly through selective breeding and genetic engineering.
- Human inventiveness has brought new risks as well as improvements to human existence.
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