Excellent Energy Engineering

With the increased focus on engineering and design instruction, teachers are looking for more activities that incorporate these concepts into their curriculum. Many NEED activities lend themselves well to being modified for engineering and design challenges. In this sampler we have modified six of our lessons to demonstrate how seamlessly you can incorporate engineering and design into your science content lessons. The key to developing a good design lesson is “less is more.” Give your students as few directions as possible; provide them with just enough information to know what the purpose of the challenge is and how they can get started with their design. It can be difficult as a teacher to let loose of the reins a bit and allow students more freedom in their explorations. However, we feel confident that your students will be able to learn what they need to learn with your guidance, while being able to develop the skills necessary to problem-solve and design solutions to well-defined challenges. None of the parameters set in the activities within this booklet are magical or set in stone. As you read through them, you may have adifferent idea about how you will challenge your students or how to best level the challenge to meet your students’ needs. Add, delete, oredit parameters as necessary. We have also provided a generic rubric for assessment of engineering and design and science process skillson pages 13-14. Use and edit as needed. Each activity in this sampler is based on more cookbook-style activities already in print in other NEED curriculum guides, and each isreferenced in the individual activity. We recommend you review those activities to become familiar with them. The other important item toremember is to trust yourself and your students. If you give them well-defined parameters, they will meet or exceed your expectations. Thekey to quality student work is to tell students what is expected. If an activity is too open-ended, students become overwhelmed and aren’tsure where to begin. Each activity includes an introduction, suggested design and testing parameters, and “Teachers’ Cheats”, along with additional extensionand enrichment opportunities. Teachers’ Cheats provide helpful tips for when your students become bogged down or get stuck on onearea of the challenge. It is suggested that you do not share these tips with students prior to beginning the challenges.  

Topics

• energy
• engineering
• battery
• gas
• solar
• activity