Week 3 & 4: The Engineering Design Process

For the past two weeks, our amazing STEM students have been learning about the Engineering Design Process (EDP) and how engineers solve problems. After learning the steps of the closed loop process (Ask, Imagine, Plan, Create, Test, Improve, Share), our STEM students put what they learned to the test.

All STEM students in all grade levels completed what we deemed the Name Tag Design Challenge. Over the course of the two weeks, our students designed and built name tags using the steps of the Engineering Design Process. Using what they learned about the EDP, the students planned the best way to use the materials they were given in order to meet the design constraints of the name tag, just like engineers would do. The students' name tags had to meet the following five constraints:

1. No bigger than 8 inches in any direction

2. Must stand up to be visible

3. Must be readable from 10 feet away

4. Must be creative and visually attractive

5. Must show one thing you are interested in

Students were also limited in the amount of material they were allowed to use. Generally they could use:

- One piece of cardboard

- One piece of foam-board

- 3 pipe-cleaners

- 2 straws

Students also had access to the STEM lab materials which includes tape and glue of many varieties and art supplies such as markers, paint, and colored pencils. We used this unit to teach and reinforce safety when using cutting tools and hot glue guns.

We are so impressed at the creativity of all our students! We saw so many different designs and construction methods. The whole goal of this project was to introduce our students to the methods that engineers use to solve problems. This theme is going to be carried through the rest of the class and our students will be using the EDP to complete all of their future projects. As teachers, we had a fun two weeks in our STEM classroom and we hope our students enjoyed this project as much as we did.

Stay tuned for the coming weeks! October is going to be an exciting time in STEM class because all of our grade levels will soon begin their separate projects based on the class themes! We cannot wait to see what our STEM students can do next!

Until next week,

Miss Capobianco and Miss Ricciardi