a wide-open field, but here are what some educators are doing now to address these ideas.


Middle school students at Harper Woods Middle School in the SWIiM project (Student Water Initiative in Michigan) examine freshwater resources in their community and the Great Lakes by engaging in a number of investigations and stewardship efforts. June Teisan and her students created “BOB” - the Basic Observation Buoy - using ideas and plans from engineering faculty, to create a buoy that gathers and reports water quality data 24/7 through their web site.


The Square One Education Network (squareonenetwork.org) encourages engineering opportunities, providing both suggestions and guidance for projects and grants to help fund teacher efforts. They host a Synergy Summit in August every year to showcase student work and provide suggestions and strategies for integrating technology and engineering into K–12 education. Projects funded include student designs of alternative energy vehicles, underwater robots that can collect data and explore lake bottoms, and software design projects that aid local non-profit groups.


Some students in southeast Michigan have long looked at engineering practices by engaging in design projects that use artifacts at The Henry Ford and Greenfield Village as sources of inspiration. For instance, an examination of real buildings in the village, along with virtual models that show underlying structures, allow students to create and test designs for new buildings that


need to include considerations for transporting building materials, designing for extreme environments (such as Antarctica or the Sahara Desert), and construction of the structure. Using new free Core Math Tools from the Core Plus mathematics project at Western Michigan University and Michigan State University, students can create their own mathematical models. Available at the NCTM website (nctm.org), these tools allow students to test complex interactions using real data, which could include water quality or weather data from the Great Lakes region, or population data to look at strategies for “growing” a city or region.


There are limitless possibilities, so where might you start? A simple collaboration is probably the best bet. Find an engineer or technologist in your community. Michigan’s network of 19 colleges and universities that have engineering programs recently convened to develop strategies and suggestions for engaging K–12 educators in engineering and technology topics - they are looking for partners. Contact one of your local universities’ engineering programs to see about their interest in working with you and your classes, or contact groups like Square One to find out more about what they do, or your regional Math/Science Center to see what options they might know about.


Stephen Best is an Education Consultant for the Michigan Department of Education in the School Reform Office. He is the past director of MACUL SIG- PL, and planned the iPads in the Classroom and Teaching and Learning in the Cloud conferences for MACUL. His work includes designing learning programs for teachers in STEM topics.


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