This study reports on a multi-year effort to create and evaluate cognitive-based curricular materials for secondary school science classrooms. A team of secondary teachers, educational researchers, and academic biomedical engineers developed a series of curriculum units that are based in biomedical engineering for secondary level students in physics and advanced biology classes. These units made use of an instructional design based upon recent cognitive science research called the Legacy Cycle. Over a 3-year period, comparison of student knowledge on written questions related to central concepts in physics and/or biology generally favored students who had worked with the experimental materials over students in control classrooms. In addition, experimental students were better able to solve applications type problems, as well as unit-specific near transfer problems.