Engineering and Elementary School?!?

An integral part of our curriculum this year has been Engineering is Elementary from the Boston Museum of Science.

The lessons all start out the same. Read a book about an elementary school age child (usually from a foreign country) who encounters some sort of dilemma that relates to a field of engineering. Then, the child meets this particular engineer who teaches them how to make/design a product and voila the problem is solved.

Then, there are some inquiry lessons along the way which all lead up to the big project.

The projects don’t all work the first time, which truly is part of the engineering design process. Some lessons need to be tried out by the teachers first—other times we give the kids the items and tell them to go for it, and most projects require quite a bit of advanced preparation and items must be purchased in advance.

It is not a curriculum for districts that don’t have disposable income/parents who can not donate items, but if you have the resources, it is worth it. I have been amazed by what the kids have created this year.

We have made solar ovens, parachutes, water filters, a magnetic levitation train, an alarm as part of an electrical circuit, and we are ending the year with simple machines, where the kids are designing a pulley system.

I will say this; the kids come to school and ask, “What are we doing in engineering today?” They are absolutely obsessed with working on the projects. They love to create the big projects—they are reflective and enjoy making improvements to their designs.

They always work well in their small groups. I hardly ever hear them arguing and when they are “engineering” behavior problems are nonexistent. The kids are so focused on creating their project; they don’t have time to misbehave.

I am so happy that our district has signed on for Project Lead the Way’s Gateway to Technology class, so that our kids can continue their engineering experience as middle schoolers.

It makes me wonder how many of them will actually stick with engineering as a career? Seriously, they are amazingly good at it! They come up with ideas that most adults probably would struggle with. It has made a believer out of me, I never thought engineering was for kids, but, boy was I wrong!