1. Students Engineering Labs

2. Purpose of Engineering Labs
• Have students create a lab with an objective in
mind.
• Improve student problem solving skills
• Change students to a more
experimental/engineering mindset

3. Purpose of this session
• To show how I integrate engineering labs into
my lesson
– Why students need this
• To discuss ways you can turn a lab into an
Engineering lab
• To give resources for people who want to
create engineering labs

4. Engineering vs. Traditional

5. Engineering vs. Modeling
• Similarities
– Modeling often is Engineering
• Differences
– Engineering often comes after content knowledge
whereas Modeling creates content knowledge

6. Taken from the NC State Engineering Place Website
Design process adapted from the Museum of Science Boston
“Engineering is Elementary” program

7. 2D Engineering Lab
• Ask
– What is the problem?
– What are the constraints?

8. 2D Engineering Lab
• Imagine: Brainstorm ideas and choose the
one you are going to try.

9. 2D Engineering Lab
• Plan: Create a procedure that you are going to
follow to test out your ideas.

10. 2D Engineering Lab
• Create: Follow the plan
• Improve: What did/didn’t work
• Redo

11. Bungee Barbie Lab

12. Resources
• PHET
– Simulations for Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Earth
Science, and Math
– Great for investigations
– Simulations have lessons plans attached which
you can utilize

13. Resources
• The Engineering Place
– Engineering lessons for Elementary and middle
school
– Links to other sites with engineering resources
• The Engineering Place Drop Box
– Additional Engineering lessons including lessons
that can be used at the high school level.
– Where the Bungee Barbie lab came from

14. Resources
• Try Engineering
– 113 lessons for all age ranges
– Search engine to search by topic and age range
• Teach Engineering
– Massive resource for activities, lessons, and unit
plans.
– Search engine to search by topic and grade level