Courses of Study : Career Tech: Career Cluster Electives

•  Identifying how new products and systems can be developed to solve problems or help do things that require technology

•  Explaining the nature of the development of technology

•  Explaining how technology is linked to creativity and innovation

•  Describing how corporations create demand for a product by utilizing technology for marketing and advertising

•  Identifying components of technology systems as input, process, output, and at times, feedback

•  Describing the relationship of parts in systems thinking

•  Comparing open-loop and closed-loop systems

•  Illustrating how technology systems can be connected to one another and how a malfunction of any part of a system may affect the function and quality of the system or related systems

•  Describing effects of requirements on a product or system

•  Explaining the nature of trade-offs and the need for careful compromises among competing factors

•  Explaining that different technologies involve different sets of processes

•  Summarizing the maintenance process of technical systems

•  Explaining how controls serve as mechanisms of change

•  Explaining how a product, system, or environment developed for one setting may be applied to another setting

•  Explaining how knowledge gained from other fields of study has a direct effect on the development of technological products and systems

•  Identifying factors that influence the development of technology

•  Summarizing the process in which social and cultural priorities influence invention and innovation and how invention and innovation influence social and cultural priorities

•  Explaining acceptance and use of technological products and systems

•  Describing ways technology affects humans, including their safety, comfort, choices, and attitudes about further development of technology

•  Identifying consequences and ethical considerations of the use of technology products and systems

•  Stating ways that technology development influences economy, politics, and culture

•  Describing how technology is used to manage waste and repair damage in technological systems

•  Recognizing conflicts that may occur between environmental and economic concerns related to advances in technology

•  Describing the evolution of techniques, measurement, and resources used in technology development

•  Recognizing the effect of technology innovations on the specialization of labor needs

•  Recognizing the purpose for design

•  Recognizing the role of criteria and constraints in a given design

•  Understanding the limits of design regarding perfection

•  Specifying criteria and constraints for the design

•  Modeling a solution to a problem in two-dimensional and three-dimensional representations

•  Recognizing that testing and evaluation of the design in relation to preestablished requirements are essential parts of the process

•  Documenting the solution to a given design problem

•  Using information provided in manuals, protocols, or by experienced people to see and understand how things work

•  Using tools, materials, and machines safely to diagnose, adjust, and repair systems

•  Using computers and calculators in various applications

•  Operating systems to achieve a given purpose

•  Designing instruments to collect data

•  Using data collected to analyze and interpret trends in order to identify positive and negative effects of a technology

•  Evaluating information for accuracy to determine its usefulness

•  Recognizing sanitation processes used in the disposal of medical products

•  Recognizing why vaccines are developed for use in immunization

•  Describing how genetic engineering involves modifying the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) to produce new genetic designs

•  Comparing a wide range of equipment and practices used to improve the production of food, fiber, fuel, and other useful products for the care of animals

•  Recognizing how biotechnology applies principles of biology to create commercial products or processes

•  Contrasting techniques used to provide long-term storage of food, including refrigeration, freezing, dehydration, preservation, and irradiation

•  Defining energy and power

•  Identifying uses of energy and power systems that provide propulsion to other technological products and systems

•  Describing concepts of efficiency and conservation of power and energy

•  Identifying primary modes of information transfer, including human to human, human to machine, and machine to human

•  Describing required components of a basic communications system, including source, encoder, transmitter, receiver, decoder, and destination

•  Identifying factors that affect the design of a message, including intended audience, medium, purpose, and nature of the message

•  Describing elements of common language used to promote clear communications, including symbols, measurements, and drawings

•  Identifying functional components that comprise a transportation system

•  Describing transportation subsystems, including structural, propulsion, suspension, guidance, control, and support that must function together for a system to work effectively

•  Describing how government regulations influence the design and operation of transportation systems

•  Explaining how transportation processes, including receiving, holding, storing, loading, moving, unloading, delivering, evaluating, marketing, managing, communicating, and using conventions are necessary for an entire transportation system to operate efficiently

•  Describing how manufacturing systems use mechanical processes to change the form of materials through separating, forming, combining, and conditioning

•  Classifying manufactured goods as durable or nondurable

•  Explaining the manufacturing process, including designing, developing, producing, and servicing of products and systems

•  Identifying chemical technologies used in manufacturing, including synthetic fibers, pharmaceuticals, plastics, and fuels

•  Explaining techniques used to locate, acquire, and transform raw materials used in manufacturing

•  Summarizing the steps of marketing

•  Describing factors influencing construction design decisions, including building laws and codes, style, convenience, cost, climate, and function

•  Identifying types of foundations and their uses

•  Classifying structures as temporary or permanent

•  Comparing building subsystems

Examples: waste disposal, water, electrical, structural, climate control, communication

•  Describing how pathways lead students through secondary and postsecondary training towards a credential

•  Identifying employment opportunities associated with the clusters

•  Explaining employment skills for securing and keeping a job