.All teachers know that if you ask students to choose topics that resonate
with them personally, you’ll find a genuine desire on their part to not only
empathize with the problem, but to solve it. Like most teachers, we balked
at having students “formulate” solutions to such convoluted problems, and
instead we decided to have students research current solutions being used
around the world in order design a plan for individual towns, communities
and cities that modified those solutions to fit the needs of the issue in
context. Because our intent of this project is not to have students create
solutions, but rather research, analyze and adapt existing solutions to a
specific context we had an opportunity to allow students to dig into fields
of science at varying levels. This project doesn’t just let students find topics
they are interested in, it creates an individualized curriculum that students of
every level can access. The range of complexity within this project matched
our students’ interests and ability while educating them about relevant
issues in the world.
Methodology and Best Practices
Because we established a goal that shifted away from creating solutions
to analyzing and modifying solutions, we knew we needed a well-defined
process our students could use to effectively craft their proposed plan.
We examined the scientific method, the engineering method outlined by
NGSS, the design process, and eventually settled on an extension of the
engineering method drafted by Thayer Engineering School at Dartmouth.
Though the scientific method certainly allows a student to analyze a
problem, our students were not determining the cause of a problem or
investigating relationships between variables. The Engineering process at
Dartmouth was created to be an…
“approach to engineering problem solving (that) provides teachers with a
framework for bringing problems of the “real world” into the classroom.
Teachers guide students through an engineering problem-solving cycle
and help them maintain high standards for scientific inquiry. Students
learn how to solve the less structured problems they will encounter in
their future in classrooms and in employment.”