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teachengineering.org

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Summary Students are presented with an overview of engineering and design. Various engineering disciplines are discussed in some detail using slides and an online video and website. The concept of design is introduced by presenting the basic steps of the engineering design process. Students learn that design is not necessarily restricted to engineering, but a general concept applicable to all walks of life. To strengthen their understanding, students are challenged to design a picnic for their friends by considering its various components as they go through the design process steps. This prepares them for subsequent design challenges such as those in the associated activities of this unit. A PowerPoint® presentation, pre/post quizzes and worksheet are provided.
This engineering curriculum meets Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).

Engineering Connection

Engineers apply their in-depth understanding of scientific and mathematical subjects to design and create devices, structures and systems that improve our lives. While scientists investigate what already exists and discover new knowledge by peering into the unknown, engineers create what has not been-they make things that have never existed before. Engineering teams follow the steps of the engineering design process: understand the need/problem, brainstorm different designs, select the best design, make a plan, create and test a prototype(s), and improve it until a satisfactory solution is achieved. The process is cyclical and may begin at, and return to, any step.

Learning Objectives

After this lesson, students should be able to:

Define engineering and identify different engineering disciplines/fields.

Define design and provide examples.

Identify the different steps in the design cycle and apply it to an example.

Educational Standards

Each TeachEngineering lesson or activity is correlated to one or more K-12 science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) educational standards.

All 100,000+ K-12 STEM standards covered in TeachEngineering are collected, maintained and packaged by the Achievement Standards Network (ASN), a project of D2L (www.achievementstandards.org).

In the ASN, standards are hierarchically structured: first by source; e.g., by state; within source by type; e.g., science or mathematics; within type by subtype, then by grade, etc.

Suggest an alignment not listed above

Introduction/Motivation

Humans have designed the many objects you see around you--the classroom and school, your house, the refrigerator, bicycle, cell phones and computers you use, roads and cars-almost everything that doesn't occur naturally! How do engineers go about designing all these varied items? Indeed, what is engineering? And what is design?

Today we will look at the various fields of engineering, and then learn about the design cycle. Let's get started.

(Continue by showing the presentation and delivering the content in the Lesson Background section.)

Lesson Background and Concepts for Teachers

This first lesson in the unit introduces students to engineering and design, which prepares them for the unit's subsequent design challenges that use LEGO® MINDSTORMS® taskbots.

Be ready to show students the 19-slide What Is Engineering? What Is Design? Presentation, a Microsoft ® PowerPoint ® file, to teach the lesson. Have ready a computer/projector with Internet access to also show students an online vide and a website. In advance, make copies of the Engineering & Design Pre/Post Quiz (two per student), provided both as attachments and slides, and the What Is Engineering? What Is Design? Worksheet (one per student).
What Is Engineering? What Is Design? Presentation Outline (slides 1-19)

Administer the pre-quiz by handing out paper copies; the quiz is also on slide 2. The answers are provided for the teacher on slide 3 for discussion after students have completed the quiz.

(slide 4) Introduce students to the "big" challenges being presently considered by engineers, including a list of 14 "grand challenges for engineers of the 21st century," listed on slide 5.

(slide 6) Define engineering, and then inform students that many types or "fields" of engineering exist. Show them the excellent, 4:17-minute "What Is Engineering?" video (link on slide 6 and in the Additional Multimedia Support section).

(slides 7-10) Take students through the various types of engineering disciplines via the American Society for Engineering Education website. Click on the interactive flashcards on the ASEE's Engineering-Go for It! (eGFI) web page to explore different disciplines. Then read through 23 engineering discipline examples presented on three slides.

(slide 11) Define the broad concept of design as "creating something that does not exist." Point out that design is not limited to engineering, for example you could conceptually "design a story."

Introduce the engineering design process using the ASEE definition and the six steps that are presented in the cyclical graphic on slide 12. The steps include 1) state the problem, 2) generate ideas, 3) choose the best solution, 4) create a prototype or object, 5) test, evaluate and improve it, 6) present the results and final solution. These steps are repeated (iterated) as often as necessary until a good solution is achieved. Sometimes the design process is called the "design cycle" or "design loop."

An alternate but equivalent design cycle is provided on slide 13. In this description of the design process, the steps are: 1) ask/concept, 2) imagine/preliminary designs, 3) plan/definitive design, 4) create, and 5) improve/iterate. Read the questions under each step, which helps students understand what to think about and do at each stage.

If time permits, have students conduct some of the 20 Engineering is Elementary engineering design units developed for elementary students, some of which are listed on slide 14 (see the source URL in the Additional Multimedia Section). At a minimum, review the academic subjects, design challenges and engineering types on the slide to show students examples of the range of engineering challenges that exist, even for K-12 students. Then make the point that the concept of design is applicable to life problems in general, and inform students that they will be given a non-engineering design challenge next-to design a picnic-as described on the next slide.

(slide 15) Introduce the design challenge: To design a picnic for your friends. Provide each student with a worksheet. Give students 15 minutes to individually come up with their ideas for each of the steps of the design cycle (on slide 13). A list of example questions for students to answer as they develop their picnic designs are provided for the teacher on slide 16.

After 15 minutes, assemble students as a class and discuss the picnic design challenge, especially focusing on what they learned and issues encountered.

Administer the post-quiz by handing out paper copies; the quiz is also on slide 17 and is exactly the same as the pre-quiz. The answers are provided on slide 18. Vocabulary terms and definitions are provided on slide 19. Next, conduct the associated activity.

Vocabulary/Definitions

Loosely defined, the art of creating something that does not exist.

engineering: The use of science and mathematics to solve problems to improve the world around us.

engineering design process: A series of steps used by engineering teams to guide them as they develop new solutions, products or systems. The process is cyclical and may begin at, and return to, any step.

Associated Activities

Maze Challenge - For their first design challenge of the unit, students are introduced to the logic for solving a maze. They observe a blindfolded student volunteer being guided through a classroom maze by the simple verbal instructions of another student. Then student groups apply that logic to program LEGO robots to navigate through a maze, first with no sensors, and then with sensors.

Attachments

Assessment

Pre-Lesson Assessment

Pre-Quiz: Before starting the lesson, administer the two-question Engineering & Design Pre/Post Quiz by handing out paper copies (also on slide 2). Students' answers reveal their base knowledge about engineering and design. Example answers are provided on the Engineering & Design Pre/Post Quiz Answer Key (and slide 3). Administer the same quiz at lesson end.

Post-Introduction Assessment

Learning about Engineering and Design: Throughout the presentation, observe students and ask questions about the content to assess their engagement and level of understanding. If computers are available for each student or small student groups, pause on slide 7 and let students explore the interactive engineering discipline flashcards on the ASEE's eGFI website (link in Additional Multimedia Support section). Ask students to explain what they learned about at least one specific field of engineering.

Picnic Design Worksheet: Have students complete the What Is Engineering? What Is Design? Worksheet by explaining how they would follow all the engineering design process steps to design a picnic for their friends. This exercise assesses students' comprehension of the design process, provides them with practice in thinking through all the design process steps, and connects the engineering design process to every day design problems. Refer to the Worksheet Example Answers Outline for how students might do this.

Lesson Summary Assessment

Post-Quiz: At lesson end, administer the Engineering & Design Pre/Post Quiz again by handing out paper copies (also on slide 16). Compare students' answers to their pre-quiz answers to assess how well they learned the concepts during the course of the lesson. Expect to see different and more-varied post-quiz answers. Example answers are provided on the Engineering & Design Pre/Post Quiz Answer Key (and slide 17).

Additional Multimedia Support

During the lesson presentation, show students the University of Newcastle's excellent 4:17-minute video, "What Is Engineering?" at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bipTWWHya8A.

During the lesson presentation, let students explore the interactive engineering discipline flashcards on the American Society for Engineering Education's "Engineering-Go for It!" website at http://www.egfi-k12.org/#.

Consider downloading and conducting some of the 20 free engineering design units for elementary students from the Museum of Science, Boston's excellent "Engineering is Elementary" website at http://www.eie.org/eie-curriculum/curriculum-units. In the presentation, a placeholder at slide 14 indicates a good point to conduct them in class, as time permits.

In advance of teaching this lesson, review the reasons why teaching K-12 engineering in your classroom is valuable for your young students at the "Why K-12 Engineering?" web page at https://www.teachengineering.org/whyk12engr.php.

See good resources about engineering careers at the Discover Engineering website at http://www.discovere.org/discover-engineering/engineering-careers.

References

eGFI (Engineering-Go for It!). American Society for Engineering Education. (A multitude of K-12 teacher and student STEM resources) http://www.egfi-k12.org/#

"Engineering." Last updated December 2014. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Accessed December 2013.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineering

Introduction to the Grand Challenges for Engineering. Last modified June 30, 2008. National Academy of Engineering of the National Academies. Accessed December 2013. (The NAE has identified 14 grand challenges for engineering in the 21st century that fall under four broad realms of human concern.) http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/cms/8996/9221.aspx

Contributors Sachin Nair, Pranit Samarth, Satish S. Nair

Copyright © 2014 by Regents of the University of Colorado; original © 2013 Curators of the University of Missouri

Supporting Program GK-12 Program, Computational Neurobiology Center, College of Engineering, University of Missouri

Acknowledgements

This curriculum was developed under National Science Foundation GK-12 grant no. DGE 0440524. However, these contents do not necessarily represent the policies of the National Science Foundation, and you should not assume endorsement by the federal government.

Last modified: March 20, 2018

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What Is Engineering? What Is Design? - Lesson

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Students are presented with an overview of engineering and design. Various engineering disciplines are discussed in some detail using slides and an online video and website. The concept of design is introduced by presenting the basic steps of the engineering design process.

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Marzano Research | Vocabulary for the New Science Standards Reproducibles

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Vocabulary for the New Science Standards Reproducibles

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This post contains affiliate links for your convenience, but at no cost to you.

The Maker Movement is big right now, and you can implement one in your own classroom with these STEAM challenges.

The Great Air Race

Begin the challenge with these 2 great books:

Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty

Violet the Pilot by Steve Breen

What makes a paper airplane fly the farthest? Create your own paper airplane. Experiment with different designs to find the one that will fly the farthest. Give your airplane at least 5 test flights and graph your data. Make a reflection video of your findings that include a recording of your test flights.

This video trailer will help set the stage for your students as they create their own flying machines:

You can also inspire your students by watching the Guinness World Record for the Longest Paper Airplane flight - 226 feet!

CCSS 2.MD.A.4, 2.MD.D.10, W.2.7, W.2.8, 3.MD.B.3, W.3.8, ISTE 4a, 4c, 6c

Become an Inventor

In this challenge, we want students to get their creative juices flowing so they can become inventors. This is a very open-ended challenge, so get students inspired with this great book:

The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires

and this message from the Kid President:

Time to get creative! Invent something that you think will be useful to others. Start with a problem that you want to solve with your invention. Write a script and create a commercial to describe your invention, how it works, and why you think other people will want to use it.

You have probably heard of the Cardboard Challenge inspired by Caine's Arcade. Inventing something with cardboard could be a great way for students to begin inventing. Include different kinds of boxes and other miscellaneous items in your maker space, and share how Caine's Arcade got started:

This book also has a lot of inspiring ideas for cardboard inventors:

Not a Box by Antoinette Portis

Another fun addition to your maker space could be the Cardboard Creator Toolkit from Lakeshore. It includes rivets, screws, hinges, and other tools that are made specifically for using with cardboard. My son got one for Christmas, and we have been making a lot of cardboard inventions at our house!

Cardboard Robot Cardboard Car with Steering Wheel

Once students have invented something, it's time to create a commercial. This is a great opportunity to work on opinion writing. Opinion writing is a standard for students grades 1 - 5, and the basic structure is the same.

To help students write their own commercial scripts, start by analyzing infomercials that follow the same basic structure. Using Edpuzzle, I annotated these infomercials to identify the elements of opinion writing.

I would suggest having students create their own commercials using iMovie or Shadow Puppet EDU once they have written their own scripts.

CCSSW.1.1, W.1.6, SL.1.5, W.2.1, W.2.6,SL.2.5, W.3.1, W.3.6, SL.3.5, W.4.1, W.4.6, SL.4.5, W.5.1, W.5.6, SL.5.5 , ISTE 4a, 4d, 6a, 6b,6c, 6d

My Mixed Up Chameleon

This challenge is based on the story The Mixed Up Chameleon by Eric Carle:

First, students get to create their own mixed up chameleon using the app pic collage for kids. Erintegration had a great blog post called Eric Carle Style Digital Collages On Pic Collage. She gives step by step instructions on how to create these collages. Using this really cool digital collage technique, students can create their own mixed up chameleon on the iPad.

If your mixed up chameleon was a real animal, what kind of animal would it be?

Next, students analyze all the different animal parts that make up their mixed up chameleon.

Thinking about the animal classification, the habitat, and the diet of all the animals that make up their mixed up Chameleon, students have to decide how they would classify their mixed up chameleon and justify their reasons. Using pic collage for kids, shadow puppet EDU, and putting it in Book Creator as an interactive digital notebook, I created an example of what it could look like:

CCSS RL.1.7, SL.1.5, RL.2.7, SL.2.5, NGSS 2-LS4-1, ISTE 6a, 6b

How to Create a Tangram Animal

This math challenge begins with the story Grandfather Tang's Story by Ann Tompert:

Choose one of the tangram animals in the story and create it. Create a step by step "How to" guide using pictures to show someone how to recreate it. Be sure to use mathematical language.

*Bonus* Create your own tangram animal and directions. Remember that you must use all 7 shapes.

Students can create their own set of 7 tangrams with the instructions from this video:

Then, they can study one of the tangram animals from the book and create a "how to" story. By taking pictures of each step in the creation of a tangram animal, students can illustrate their "how to" story with their own pictures. The easiest way to do this is on the iPad using the book creator app to create each page of the story with the student's own pictures. Students can even use the app vimo to highlight important parts of their "how to" story. Here is an example:

The next step in this challenge is to create a video glossary for geometry terms related to the tangrams.

Although the following video is not one of the terms listed above, it is a student example of what the terms in this video glossary might look like. This video was created using Shadow Puppet EDU.

CCSS 2.G.A.1, W.2.2, W.2.6, SL.2.5, 3.G.A.1, W.3.2, W.3.6, SL.3.5, 4.G.A.1, W.4.2, W.4.6, SL.4.5 ISTE 6c

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This post contains affiliate links for your convenience, but at no cost to you. The Maker Movement is big right now, and you can implement one in your own classroom with these STEAM challenges. The Great Air Race Begin the challenge with these 2 great books: Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty Violet the Pilot by Steve Breen What makes a paper airplane fly the farthest?

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Engineering as a Stealth Language, Part I

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Engineering as a Stealth Language, Part I

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From start-engineering.com

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Once you see it ...

As we learn from encounters with M. C. Escher, Rorschach, and that always-slightly-creepy picture of the old-woman-with-a-scarf/young-woman-in-a-hat, the nature of what we look at depends greatly on how we see it. And when you see something one way, it can be hard ever to un-see it that way.

So too, with engineering. Most views of engineering feature math and science front and center. With good reason, to be sure; following sound math and science principles gives the bridge the best chance to remain standing.

A new angle on engineering

Even so, engineering, especially as a topic of learning in schools, calls on students to put their language skills to heavy use. In fact, the language arts dimensions of engineering make it a powerful, if stealthy lever for building literacy.

A two-part post

This post is the first of two addressing connections between engineering and literacy.

In this first part, we will examine how the engineering design process necessarily involves students in a richly varied sequence of language arts exercises. Indeed, engineering amplifies students' motivation to commit to and succeed in these exercises because doing well in them makes their engineering projects more likely to succeed.

We will also look at how the stealthy links between engineering and literacy can especially benefit the language development skills of English-learning students.

In the second part, coming in two weeks, we will look at some obstacles to educators putting engineering to work in K-12 environments and consider literacy-oriented approaches to engineering as a means to overcome them.

Engineering as a tool for building literacy

Engineering studies can enhance students' abilities in many different registers of language, including exposition, persuasion, narration, analysis, and description, to name just some. Putting engineering design to work in class is like using a kind of Swiss army knife of literacy tools, useful in almost every kind of language arts exercise.

Engineering design as a language arts program

The engineering design process is the go-to intellectual technology for every engineer. It's also a ready template for any problem-based, collaborative project students might undertake. Indeed, some schools have adopted engineering design as the pedagogical foundation for all the subjects their students study.

At nearly every stage of the engineering design process, language arts are vital.

Define and learn about the problem

First, students must understand the problem they are solving from as many angles as possible. This means research, reading all different kinds of texts to fill out the whole picture, including historical, sociological, technical, descriptive, and so on.

To further their research, students might interview people with knowledge of the problem or who might be users of the solution. Crafting questions, recording responses, and making meaning out of multiple examples of discursive speech all are literacy-building activities.

Brainstorm solutions and choose among options

With a research base to guide them, students then dream up with their teammates as many creative solutions as possible. The work to pick one among them requires team members to employ varied modes of language, such as conversation, persuasion, active listening, and analytical reasoning.

Build and test a prototype

Perhaps the least language-heavy phase of the design process, building still requires that students talk through their plans and coordinate tasks. Linear reasoning and clarity of expression serve them well here.

Test with users and gather data

Putting a solution into users' hands and gathering feedback on it cast student engineers as both instructors and anthropologists.

First, they must provide clear guidance about a new task to people unfamiliar with their ideas, something all teachers will recognize as a language challenge.

Then, they have to elicit information both directly from users and by observation regarding the utility of their prototype. Both types of information are critical, as people are often unreliable reporters of their own actions and experiences. Often contradictory, then, these two types of linguistic feedback require reconciliation and sense-making in a collaborative environment.

Make improvements

Students will have to negotiate among themselves, through conversation, reflection, and arguing from available evidence, to arrive at a full picture of what worked with their solution, what did not, and how to improve it. This move from analyzing to judging to acting hones students' abilities to process language from various angles for various purposes, weighing the degrees to which language can and should drive action or not. In this era of "fake news," such a skill is not to be slighted.

A real workout

In all stages of the engineering design process, then, language arts come in for heavy use. The need to think and write clearly across all these different linguistic modalities makes this exercise into something like high-intensity cross-training for literacy.

Intrinsically motivating

Also powering the efficacy of engineering in building literacy skills is the student-centered nature of the work. Students work on projects of their own devising and bring extra motivation to their tasks because they want to see their ideas succeed. Language arts are a crucial ingredient of this success, the prospect of which gives students organic incentives to exercise literacy skills as vigorously as possible. As a result, in stealthy fashion, the engineering design process works to improve students' language and reasoning skills without them necessarily even realizing it.

Turbocharged for English-learning students

All the reasons that engineering design projects work to build literacy skills among general student populations make it perhaps even more beneficial for English-language learners, or ELL's.

A January report from The Education Trust-West brings together the threads of this argument, with volumes of research cited to flesh out the picture. "Unlocking Learning: Science as a Lever for English Learner Equity" profiles six California school districts where science and engineering programs are embedded in larger, strategic efforts to boost literacy levels among ELL's.

Wedding science and engineering learning to literacy efforts, the report finds, can yield mutually reinforcing cycles of improvement in both areas. In almost all these districts, ELL's score as proficient or above in state science tests at two-to-three times the level of their ELL peers across the state, with scores in reading generally higher as well.

Yet another achievement gap to close

Measures to raise English-learners' achievement in engineering are clearly needed. ELL's score well below native English speakers in engineering and technological literacy, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress Technology and Engineering Literacy results.

The test was scored on a 0-300 scale, with a score of 158 representing proficiency.

Among public-school ELL's, five percent scored proficient or above, with an average score of 108.

Among public-school native English speakers, 43 percent scored proficient or above, with an average score of 151.

How it helps with language development

Research cited in the Unlocking Science report suggests inquiry-based content like engineering could catalyze advances in language development skills, as well.

Project-based learning activities, such as engineering design work, provide students with language practice in conversation and writing within an inherently motivating context.

Engineering design projects are accretive, building stage by stage towards an end-result subsuming all previous work. This kind of effort calls on students to activate earlier learning to solve new problems, mostly through deploying varied forms of language skills.

Many key engineering words are cognates in Spanish, making the content more accessible to Spanish-speaking ELL's.

Data often lend themselves to visual or symbolic representation, allowing ELL's to build and demonstrate cognitive skills in a way independent of their command of English.

The non-linguistic nature of much engineering work, using numbers, graphs, and other visual media, allows ELL's to show teachers a fuller range of their abilities. Research shows that teachers' appraisals of their ELL students often rise under these circumstances.

The integration payoff

In effects that are both similar to those on native speakers as well as unique to ELL's, engineering would support language development skills in various, intersecting ways. These benefits also help frame K-12 engineering, not as just pre-professional or vocational training, but as an integral part of the basic curriculum. Grounding learning in relevant, purposeful contexts, engineering can boost students' achievement not only in language arts but across multiple disciplines.

Next up, specific ways to get started

So, as noted above, next will come discussion of obstacles and solutions to K-12 engineering, as seen through the lens of literacy.

What do you think? Is this model of engineering as a tool for literacy persuasive and/or viable? What do you think the obstacles and solutions might be?

Let us know your thoughts. And please share with any interested colleagues or friends.

Eric Iversen is VP for Learning and Communications at Start Engineering. He has written and spoken widely on engineering education in the K-12 arena. You can write to him about this topic, especially when he gets stuff wrong, at eiversen@start-engineering.com.

You can also follow along on Twitter @StartEnginNow.

Now available! A bilingual version of Dream, Invent, Create, for making engineering come alive in Spanish and English at the same time.

Our Dream, Invent, Create Teacher's Guide makes it easy to get started teaching elementary school engineering, even with no training in the field. And for any outreach or education program, check out What's Engineering?, Dream, Invent, Create, and Start Engineering: A Career Guide. Our books can help deliver an accessible, engaging picture of engineering to all kinds of K-12 audiences.

Photos: Brentwood logo, courtesy of Brentwood Elementary School; Unlocking Learning cover, courtesy of The Education Trust-West.

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As we learn from encounters with M. C. Escher, Rorschach, and that always-slightly-creepy picture of the old-woman-with-a-scarf/young-woman-in-a-hat, the nature of what we look at depends greatly on how we see it. And when you see something one way, it can be hard ever to un-see it that way. So too, with engineering.