Designing Engineering Teaching Kits (Etks) For Middle School Students

The University of Virginia has undertaken a major project to design, implement, test, and distribute Engineering Teaching Kits (ETKs) for use in mi ddle school science and math courses. A new senior design course sequence for fourth year Mechanical Engineers allowed 30 students to participate in this project. Six ETKs are currently being developed: submersible vehicles, gels and brain perfusion, simple machines, solar car design, design for sustainability, and engineering materials. Each will emphasize the engineering design approach to problem solving. Every team has a faculty advisor from Engineering, a representative from the Education School, and a mi ddle school teacher providing advice and assistance. In this paper, we will review our approach to developing ETKs, and briefly describe each of the ETKs and the assessments we are conducting.