Planting the Seeds of STEM in Elementary Students

by Leslie McRobie I

’m guessing there would’ve been a lot of raised eyebrows if there had been visitors in my class this week. Hearing a young girl describe the benefits of modifying a spork

is just not your run-of-the-mill classroom discussion. If you listened a little longer though, you would have realized that she was applying the Engineering Design Process in her thinking about this everyday technology. If a spork is a spoon and a fork, why couldn’t it also be redesigned to include a sharp side that could be used as a knife? What is perhaps even more interesting than the spork redesign itself, is that this student hardly ever speaks up in class.

Engineering is Elementary

The lesson mentioned above is an introductory lesson from the Engineering is Elemen- tary curriculum called “What are Engineering and Technology?” For the past four years, I have been using the Museum of Science’s Engineering is Elementary (EiE) curriculum to teach engineering to my fifth-grade students at Somersworth Middle School in Somersworth, New Hampshire. EiE is a research-based, standards-driven, and classroom-tested curriculum that integrates engineering and technology concepts and skills with elementary science topics. EiE lessons not only pro- mote science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning, but also incorporate literacy and social studies. The EiE curriculum is divided into units that pair a field of

engineering with a science topic commonly taught in elementary school classrooms. An illustrated storybook featuring a child character introduces students to an engineering problem. Students are then challenged to solve a problem similar to that faced by the storybook character. Through a hands-on engineering design chal- lenge, students work in teams to apply their knowledge of science and mathematics; use their inquiry and problem-solving skills; and tap their creativity as they design, create, and improve possible solutions. Because each EiE unit is set in a different country of the world,

my students can pull from and expand their social studies knowl- edge. Throughout all of the lessons, the students are encouraged to develop their teamwork and problem solving skills—skills that I see them apply in their math lessons and writing projects. One EiE unit that particularly influenced my teaching is a unit

that ties to the science of plants, Thinking Inside the Box: Design- ing a Plant Package. In this unit, students are challenged to design a package that can contain and protect a plant for several days while also ensuring that the package allows the plant to meet its basic needs. I really value that the unit touches upon an authentic problem that the students have some experience with. Most of my students have seen plants on store shelves. This unit brings them to the realization that a great deal of thought went into

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Leslie McRobie