Modeling In Support Of The Engineering Design Process: Experiences In The Elementary Classroom

Increasingly students of all ages should be engaged in science, engineering and computational activities as it is used across an increasing amount of subject areas. Inquiry-based elementary science education provides students with some opportunities to engage in authentic science but the subject area expertise required by teachers can be daunting and time consuming. Currently engineering education professionals are looking for opportunities to positively influence elementary (STEM) experience but the school curriculum demands limit their opportunity to expose students to the benefits of engineering problem solving. Through professional development we have instituted some graphic-based modeling techniques that support and extend current inquiry science curriculum activities and leverage the engineering design cycle. Research and findings done as part of a two-year NSF-supported project in elementary education will be presented, demonstrating how modeling activities in the form of student-produced drawings and notebook entries have been used to help explore scientific and mathematical concepts underlying engineering problems. Specifically, kit-based science and technology education activities that actively support engineering problem-based learning are used as a context for exploring the potential of these graphic-based modeling activities.