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https://www.teachengineering.org/activities/view/umo-2942-mindful-messages-communication-solutions-activity Students explore how the brain enables communication through spoken and written language and how communication is essential for solving problems. Working in groups, students define a problem related to communication, design a solution using a micro:bit, build a prototype, and then test their designs. Possible communication challenges they might tackle are hearing loss, language barriers, or noisy environments. Students follow specific criteria and constraints as they design and build their prototype. After testing their designs and prototypes, students improve their designs as needed. To wrap up, students exchange prototypes with other groups and test each other’s solutions. This engineering curriculum aligns to Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).
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Wondering About Wobbling
As the world becomes increasingly complex, students will be faced with problems that require outside-of-the-box thinking. The complexity of these problems is compounded when considering the needs of people and their impacts on the environment. The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) incorporate engineering design to develop students’ skills at defining and delimiting problems, designing solutions to problems, and optimizing the design solutions—all while maximizing benefit and minimizing risk (NGSS Lead States 2013). Design thinking furthers the engineering design process by acknowledging that solutions to engineering design problems may differ depending on the community the solution serves and the environment for which the solution is designed (Brown 2008). For example, if the challenge is to “build a strong building,” students located in Florida would consider whether the building could handle the strong winds and rains of a hurricane, while students located in California, where earthquakes are common, may view strong buildings as those that can withstand earthquakes.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1824856
- PAR ID:
- 10392575
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Science and children
- Volume:
- 59
- Issue:
- 3
- ISSN:
- 0036-8148
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 25-29
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
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- The DOI is not currently available.
