Providing students with opportunities to build, and test and revise ideas, can help them develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills. In this article, the authors describe how core measurement and geometry concepts were embedded within a "Model It!" task. They replicate an industry-based, interdisciplinary problem, but only…

The power of 3D printing technology has grown exponentially in just the past few years--people around the world are using 3D printers to prepare food, create tailored clothing, build cars and homes, and advance the medical field in ways that never seemed possible. In classrooms across the nation, 3D printers have become increasingly common because…

Problem solving is essential to everyone's life. People survive if they are nourished, sheltered, and protected--and they construct ways to obtain nourishment, shelter, and protection through problem solving. Though problems vary in complexity--survival at the one end and the pursuit of comfort at the other--we are reliant on our ability to…

In this article, students build a prototype guitar. One way to get students to take creative risks is to allow playful approaches to their designs--let them come up with wild or silly ideas. By starting from such a wide-open place, many students will change their definitions and assumptions of what a guitar has to be. The result will be a wider…