Engineering on a shoestring

 In my last entry I described the joy of using the Lego Wedo and Mindstorms sets to teach elementary school engineering skills as defined in the Next Generation Science and Engineering Standards .

 

However, you don't need to go to the expense of purchasing the Lego kits to teach perfectly good elementary school engineering skills.

 By way of introducing the concept of engineering in the elementary school we first distinguished it from science. This can be most easily done by looking at the origin of the questions or curiosities one might have when studying a situation.

 In science the questions or inquiry arise from the natural world;  how are rocks forms, what causes the seasons, what affects the time of a pendulum swing, how is  paper made?

 In engineering the questions or inquiry arise from how we use our scientific knowledge and understanding to solve problems, resolve issues or make life better.

 This implies that the study of science comes first. We can then use our new-found knowledge and understanding and make it more relevant and meaningful by applying it to an engineering situation.

 During GED695 we studied the science of a swinging pendulum and then used this knowledge to design a pendulum that swung once every second. Since all good engineering solutions need to be presented each group of students timed their pendulum to see who had made the most accurate one.

 

The prize went to Theresa and Monique; their pendulum swung precisely 30 times in 30 seconds exactly. 

 We also used a copy of the Sunday Free Press (free the following Monday) to construct the tallest towers we could that supported a small washer.

 Trisha,

 Kate,

Ashley and Julie built an incredibly elegant one from floor to ceiling.

 Everyone, however, was successful in building a tower and realizing a great sense of achievement.

The capital outlay for these two engineering classes? $0

Science or Engineering and a Pendulum

Today was the second class in my Teaching Elementary School Science and Math course. Last week we explored what it means to think and act like a scientist by using our science process skills to explore surface tension and the properties of water drops. Today we briefly explored the content of the elementary school science curriculum and then looked at the difference between science and engineering. The perfect way to do this is to explore the properties of a pendulum. We explored three variables to see  which of them affected the speed of the pendulum; the length, the weight or the release position. After some exploration the students decided only the length affected the time of the swing. They also discovered that if there is more weight and the release  position is higher the pendulum will swing for a longer time.

With this new-found scientific knowledge I then challenged the students to make a pendulum clock that swung exactly 15 times in 15 seconds. The activity had segued into an engineering activity because they were now using their scientific knowledge to solve a problem. In science the questions arise from the natural world; in engineering they arise from how we use our knowledge of science to answer questions of our adaptation to the natural world, or how to invent things or solve problems.

Here is the most amazing pendulum video I have ever seen; from harmony to chaos and back again, over and over, just like life.

Science and Design Technology

We started the science and design technology part of my math/science course yesterday. I always start this part of the course with several activities that focus on the "how" of science education rather than the "what". The "how" of science brings a focus to what we call the science process skills; skills such as careful observation, clear communication, making inferences and testing hypotheses.

The first activity was a science activity in which we explored the properties and characteristics of drops of water. Everyone is familiar with drops of water but not with what you can do with them or how you can study them. We used droppers to see how many drops would fit on a penny or how drops moved on a piece of wax paper. This is a great topic to do with young children but it's important for the pre-service teachers to get a sense of just how much you can do with a simple topic if you apply your minds as well as your hands.

The second activity had two parts and was designed to take the students from pure science to the field of design technology. One can differentiate between the two by the type of questions one asks. In science, the questions arise from the natural world: how does magnetism work? How do plants grow? What cases rain to fall? In design technology the questions come from how we use our scientific knowledge to solve everyday problems or create things to make our lives better.

The activity asked students to find out which of three variables affects the time of the sewing of a pendulum; its length, the weight, or where the release point is. That's what Maegan is testing in the picture. Once the students had established which it was the next task, a design technology activity, was to make a pendulum that would keep time by swinging once every second. In order to do this they had to use the scientific knowledge they had developed in the first part of the activity.