Engineering

Engineering

Engineering is Elementary Lessons: EiE Teaches Students to Make Science Connections and Solve Problems

Engineering, the science that applies science and mathematics in order to solve problems and create tools of use to humankind, is more important than ever in the global, technological world. However, until recently, engineering topics have rarely been introduced to students before the high school or even college levels.

Engineering is Elementary Units for K-6 Classrooms

As a part of the National Center for Technological Literacy (NCTL), the Engineering is Elementary team of scientists and educators at the Museum of Science in Boston aim to bring engineering lessons to K-6 classrooms.

Each unit includes preparatory lessons that act as advanced organizers and encourage young students to consider engineering, technology, and the Engineering Design process. Students investigate misconceptions about technology and learn about the engineers who design these technologies. Additionally, each topic in the series is introduced with an engineering story that promotes an understanding of how engineering is used around the world to solve everyday problems.

Follow-up activities and worksheets emphasize important vocabulary and encourage students to think about the factors that are incorporated into engineering planning decisions. Since the stories take place in a variety of cultures, students are also taught to recognize that engineering is a science that is important to agricultural and industrial nations alike. These lessons also allow students to think and act like engineers as they problem solve, design, and improve upon ideas. Furthermore, hands-on engineering activities encourage students to learn from mistakes as they troubleshoot design flaws.

Current Engineering is Elementary titles, which can generally be covered in eight to ten 40-minute lessons, cover mechanical, environmental, material, civil, industrial, acoustical, agricultural, bioengineering, electrical, chemical, geotechnical, package, and transportation engineering topics. Future units to be published in 2008 and 2009 will also include civil, aerospace, eco-systems, computer science, and biomedical engineering.

The units stand alone and include both basic and advanced levels of instructions so that teachers can differentiate lessons to meet science objectives at appropriate age and ability levels.

Teacher Educator Institutes

As well as providing lessons for elementary students, the EiE provides teacher training workshops to introduce educators to the series. Additionally, workshops provide participants with information for implementing professional development within elementary schools. The Teacher Educator Institutes are presented at a variety of levels, or strands, in order to provide a progressive program of study to interested teaching professionals.…

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Engineering

SPE: Part 3- Engineering in a Non-Engineering Family

 

I was born of goodly parents. They instilled in me a belief that I could become anything I wanted in this world.

As I discuss in my profile, my dad played an important role in my deciding to become an engineer. This wasn’t because he was an engineer himself, because he was an educator by trade. Instead, he encouraged this path because he saw in me a desire to understand the world around me.

This is all to explain that I could not have had a better upbringing or more support than I had. However, it became clear within a few semesters of school, that I was at a disadvantage to many of my peers. Being the first in my family to pursue engineering (that I know of), I would often feel lost in lectures or conversations at school with those who had parents in the engineering or construction industries.

 

It would sometimes frustrate me that professors would assume that I knew what ‘design-build’, client-contractor relationships, or E.I.T (Engineer in Training) meant. It happened quite a bit and more often than I let on.

It can be almost directly related to my intro to Spanish class that I took in my studies. Having no Spanish training, experience or heritage, I was placed in the same class with students that grew up in a Spanish speaking home or that took the language in high school. Because they didn’t ‘speak’ it, they were assumed to be at the same level as I even though I had next to zero Hispanic exposure in my life to that point. I studied, practiced… and got a solid B.

In my engineering classes, I quickly learned that I couldn’t be shy in my ignorance. I would force myself ask questions from my engineering-reared counterparts, and would try and take advantage of professor office hours. I worked at learning the material as much as any other students and, academically, consistently stayed average or above.

If it sounds like I was the only one who didn’t have a parent or close relative that was in the engineering or construction field, I most definitely wasn’t. Not by a long shot. But where my friends were proactive in improving their engineering knowledge in an out of the books, I kind of shot myself in the foot.

I knew that getting an internship or job related to my career was important, but I guess not important enough. Most of my friends quickly found themselves part-time jobs working on campus with professors or as a low paid draftsman. I went for the pay and benefits in a delivery job until my senior year when I let it go and found an internship. That was one of the best decisions of my life.

So, in consideration of a single, self experienced case study, these are my keys for getting ‘street smart’ when you have no engineering background.

1. Don’t be ashamed

Ask questions about everything you don’t understand, even if it seems like everyone else does.

2. Meet the firms

Make a list of all of the prominent design and consulting firms in the area. Study this list and, if possible, try and make connections from some of these firms. You won’t regret it.

3. Try and get a paid internship

If you can’t, try and get a paid job related to what area you are concentrating in. If you can’t do either of these, and if your personal situation allows, offer to work for free, or at least minimum.

4. Find a mentor

If possible, find a licensed Professional Engineer to shadow and observe. Preferable at your job, but if not, most professors are great about you asking them questions after class or during their office hours.

5. Get involved

It is almost harder to not be actively involved in a local chapter of an engineering society than be involved. Still, I managed to somehow stay away from them. Many principles of design and computer software are learned when you work with a team on a project such as concrete canoe or steel bridge.

6. Meet Google

I will be honest; I had never been told what an abutment was when I graduated. In the first few months of my job following school, my boss asked me to do a quantity check on one. I was too ashamed to ask him, but Google didn’t mind. (An abutment is the end supports of a bridge, by the way) Google Books is also an ever-expanding resource for technical information.

7. Don’t get frustrated

Know that you can make it, regardless of background. Don’t let one confusing lecture or one bad test grade deter you. If you really want it, you have an advantage over anyone.…

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