Knockoffs. You can buy them anywhere—from a street vendor, a flea market, or the local discount shop. But what if you’ve decided to pay more for the “real thing”? How can you be sure you’re getting the handbag, shoes, device, or even medication you’re paying for?

That’s going to be less of a concern thanks to the innovation resulting from the collaborative effort of Drs. Jeremy Wilson and Evangelyn Alocilja at Michigan State University. Take a look at Science of Innovation: Anti-Counterfeiting Devices to find out how knockoffs might be knocked out of the marketplace.

The series is available cost-free on www.NBCLearn.com, www.science360.gov, and www.uspto.gov/education. Use the link below to download the lesson plans in a format you can edit to customize for your situation. And if you had to make significant changes to a lesson, we’d love to see what you did differently, as well as why you made the changes. Leave a comment, and we’ll get in touch with you with submission information. We look forward to hearing from you!

–Judy Elgin Jensen

Image of fake Chuck Taylors courtesy of Bill Walsh.

Video

SOI: Anti-Counterfeiting Devices highlights how Dr. Evangelyn Alocilja contributed her expertise in nanotechnology, which she had used in her own research to detect bacteria and other contaminants in food, to the problem of counterfeit goods.

Lesson plans

Two versions of the lesson plans help students build background and develop questions they can explore the clues that might identify a product as an authentic name brand or a knockoff and what strategies might they employ to ensure their products are authentic. Both include strategies to support students in their own quest for answers and strategies for a more focused approach that helps all students participate in hands-on inquiry.

SOI: Anti-Counterfeiting Devices, A Science Perspective models how students might investigate how the size of a soluble particle affects its rate of dissolving.
SOI: Anti-Counterfeiting Devices, An Engineering Perspective models how students might design anti-counterfeiting devices.

You can use the following form to e-mail us edited versions of the lesson plans: [contact-form 2 “ChemNow]