Boost young children's problem-solving skills and set them up for long-term success with the second edition of this practical guidebook! Enhanced with new lessons and timely topics--including equity and the use of makerspaces--this book will help you get all children ready for kindergarten by teaching them basic practices of engineering design and…

Maximizing classroom time to include meaningful content-based learning with fun engaging activities that simultaneously challenge and encourage students is a hallmark of a successful school day. This article shares one instructional approach that does a model eliciting activity (MEA). A MEA is a real-world, problem-based scenario framed around a…

Prior to the recycling process, raising awareness of plastic waste impact, e.g., polluting oceans worldwide, is undoubtedly a first attempt to tackle this pandemic environmental issue. With this in mind, the presented practical session is an effort to entice an interdisciplinary audience of science undergraduates toward a sustainable future. The…

Teaching design to middle and high school students can be challenging. One of the first procedures in teaching design is to help students gather information that will be useful in the design phase. An early stage of engineering design as described by Lewis (2005), calls for the designer to establish the state of the art of the problem. During this…

Everyone has problems, from the smallest ant competing for a food source to the largest elephant needing to cool down. Fortunately, organisms have structures that function to help them solve these problems. So when a group of fourth-grade students look for solutions to their problems, who do they turn to? A biological champion, of course! Plants…

Automated theorem proving (ATP) for Propositional Classical Logic is an algorithm to check the validity of a formula. It is a very well-known problem which is decidable but co-NP-complete. There are many algorithms for this problem. In this paper, an educationally oriented implementation of Semantic Tableaux method is described. The program has…

What if you could challenge your 12th graders to understand car crashes in the context of physical forces, manufacturing challenges, government safety standards, and individual rights? With this volume in the "STEM Road Map Curriculum Series," you can! "Car Crashes" outlines a journey that will steer your students toward…

Presents six problems from an alternative approach to homework traditionally given to follow-up lectures. Stresses the advantage of longer term exercises which allow for creativity and independence on the part of the student. Problems include: "System Model,""Open-Loop Simulation,""PID Control,""Dahlin…

Explains the principles of assessment, lists goals and criteria for problem solving, and provides forms of evidence to evaluate students' understanding of the subject knowledge and ability of problem solving. (Contains 43 references.) (Author/YDS)

This learning activity develops algorithms to ensure that the process of selecting materials is well defined and sound. These procedures require the use of many databases to provide the designer with information such as physical, mechanical, and chemical properties of the materials under consideration. A design brief, student quiz, and five…

To build understanding of, and the ability to use, first-year science and engineering calculus, students were introduced to differential equations and asked to carry out research on differential equation modeling projects. Describes a model for the research paper; appendices provide a copy of the student handout and five examples of student…

Proposes a simple approach for including exercises into the freshman level classroom to help first and second semester students approach and solve problems in novel and inventive ways. (Author/CCM)

Explains the evolution of the objectives of engineering education from knowledge to skills which is referred to as a 'paradigm shift'. Reviews the relationship between the demands and the educational objectives, and discusses the implications for assessment and the relationship between educational methods and assessment. (Author/YDS)

Describes the two-course engineering design graphics sequence on introductory design and graphics topics. The first course focuses on conceptual design and the development of visualization and sketching skills while the second one concentrates on detail design and parametric modeling. (Contains 28 references.) (Author/ASK)

Reports the results of a pilot study in a senior paper science and engineering class of an innovative instructional method designed to foster student problem solving and in-depth learning of material, namely student peer teaching. Reviews literature focusing on active learning methods and describes the method for student peer teaching. (Author/SAH)