Engineering departments at universities and professional engineering organizations have long advocated including engineering in the K-12 curriculum. Many of these programs are using one of the educator’s most powerful tools: play. Research shows that most engineers tinkered and built things when they were young. Now, engineering education programs are seeking to encourage more children, especially girls, to develop their spatial and design skills through play.
LEGO MINDSTORMS kits, which include 400+ parts and the NXT robot “brain,” help students learn science concepts as they have fun. A wealth of available curriculum resources helps teachers turn play into learning.
Debbie Granger, science teacher at Clay Elementary, explains that allowing her students to play with the LEGO kits helped them move quickly from basic designs to more complex ones, and then into solving more challenging problems. Her third grade students are using the kits with curriculum developed by Tufts University’s Center for Engineering Education and Outreach (CEEO).
Measurement, a skill required across all sciences, is the primary focus as students work to build miniature chairs that will support the short legs and fluffy bodies of small stuffed bears.
Granger encourages her students to think carefully about what they are building. “See if his back will fit; try this one,” she says, and “Wait; do we need to use all these pieces across here?”
“Engineering curriculum is ideal for combining building and learning,” says Keith May, operations and materials manager, and a former engineer. “It provides students with design challenges that encourages them to develop an idea, try it, and then figure out how to improve and refine it.”
Through support from the McDonnell family and the JSM Charitable Trust, more than 140 students in grades 3-5 at Peabody, Oak Hill, and Clay elementary schools in St. Louis Public, and at Pershing and Barbara C. Jordan in University City, are participating in the elementary engineering pilot project. Teachers participated in a workshop to become familiar with the curriculum prior to use.
“I’m glad I got the opportunity to go through the professional development,” says Granger. “You experience the same highs and lows the kids will experience, and then you can work them through it,” she explains.
Granger, a veteran science educator, maintains a menagerie, a greenhouse, and a gallery in her classroom. A turtle pond surrounded by plants burbles in the corner. A tall birdcage houses a twittering family of finches. Aquariums line the walls, containing tarantulas, hissing cockroaches, geckos, a snake, and several generations of blue-tongued skinks. Two rabbits keep watch from cages near her desk.
“All of my animals were abused and rescued, or else they were born here,” explains Granger. Her passion for teaching all aspects of science has created a special space where Clay students can build futures as veterinarians, environmental scientists -- or engineers.
To learn more, plan to attend the Teaching K-12 with LEGO MINDSTORMS conference on June 17, 2011.