C

This week, we introduced Civil Engineering and the design process with the activity build a chair for Mr. Bear.  We first described what a Civil Engineer is then provided them with a worksheet that has the steps of Engineering Design.

The kids worked in pairs for this project. Before they could start building, we asked them to first draw a picture of their design together. There were a few kids who focused more on making the chair look cool as opposed to making the chair functional (in order that it may pass the fit test, shake test, and have a backing).  The kids were also distracted by some of the parts of simple machines kit (ie. wheels). We did take out the motor and batteries before giving them the kits, but a lot of them were still insistent on using other parts of as opposed to putting together the blocks. Only one pair was able to finish the activity and pass all three of the tests. Despite this, all the kids seem to be very interested in building their chairs.