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September Engineering Challenge

10/2/2013

1 Comment

 
Picture
The Challenge Activities: 
Welcome to our STEM Lab blog! I want to begin my first post by letting you know what we did for our first lessons in Grades 3 and 4 STEM Lab in September. I started with an engineering challenge. The performance expectation from the brand new Next Generation Science Standards was to:

"Define  simple design problem reflecting a need or a want that includes specified criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost."

3rd Grade Challenge:
 Since the primary job of engineers is to brainstorm, design, and create, using whatever resources they have available, I gave the 3rd graders some 81/2 x 11 paper and a full water bottle. Their team challenge was to build a tower that held a full water bottle off the table at least 12 inches.  Check out this slide gallery to see some results:

Picture
The 4th Grade Engineering Teams

Performance Expectation:
"Define  simple design problem reflecting a need or a want that includes specified criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost."

The Challenge:
Using only two pieces of newspaper, build the tallest free-standing tower you can.

Criteria: 
  • Free-standing for 5 seconds
  • As tall as you can



Constraints:

  • Only two pieces of newspaper

Here are some results:

My Reflections on the Lesson:
These students love to create and build stuff! The lab was abuzz with activity: students brainstorming ideas, drawing possible towers in their notebooks, trying out their designs, and watching them fail. A big lesson I teach in engineering labs is that failure is necessary - it is an opportunity to find the design problem and improve it. I ask students to celebrate failure! I also noticed that they love the constraints - the constraints became a challenge that drove them to brainstorm ideas even more. 
I encourage students to communicate their ideas during the brainstorming before they build. Listening closely to other's ideas is the other part of brainstorming - say yes to ideas!


In one of the labs I noticed that a student had built a very tall (46 inches!) free-standing structure.
"How did you get the idea?" I asked her and her team member.
"I noticed the book on tall buildings you had in the classroom, Mr. I. So I looked through it for ideas!"
This is one of those moments that make me smile.


Some learnings I noticed :
  • brainstorming
  • cooperative teamwork, which involves listening/sharing ideas
  • geometry-which structures have more strength
  • failure as an opportunity to learn
  • perseverence
  • joyful tinkering
1 Comment
Bob Sprankle link
10/2/2013 03:51:12 am

Mr. I,

Awesome first post! These are such great lessons and thank you so much for providing the galleries of student work. It's amazing to see the range of ideas produced.

I love that you "celebrate failure" and am so glad that you're talking to students about this. It seems that many students see failure as something to be avoided, but it is only through failure that we learn and finally reach our goals.

Have you ever seen the movie, "MEET THE ROBINSONS"? The movie talks all about "celebrating failure" in life... especially when inventing. (Here's a blog post I wrote about it a long time ago: http://bit.ly/15jUkog).

We are so lucky to have you here at Wells Elementary School doing such amazing work with the students!

Bob Sprankle

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