Unit Elementary School Engineering Design Field Day

Unit Overview

The activities expose students to various engineering principles across a wide range of fields including aerodynamics (Design and Fly a Kite, Wind-Powered Sail Cars), collaborative problem-solving (Engineering Derby: Tool Ingenuity) and structural stability (Race to the Top! Modeling Skyscrapers, Straw Towers to the Moon). By holding the event in the form of a competition, students become deeply invested in designing and building their projects to beat their competitors’ designs. A concluding awards ceremony recognizes the winners of each competition for their achievements, setting an example for all students to excel in engineering.

Educational Standards

Each TeachEngineering lesson or activity is correlated to one or more K-12 science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) educational standards.

All 100,000+ K-12 STEM standards covered in TeachEngineering are collected, maintained and packaged by the Achievement Standards Network (ASN), a project of D2L (www.achievementstandards.org).

In the ASN, standards are hierarchically structured: first by source; e.g., by state; within source by type; e.g., science or mathematics; within type by subtype, then by grade, etc.

See individual lessons and activities for standards alignment.

Unit Schedule

As described in this document, the suggested culminating “field day” competition takes about seven hours, while the student design/build preparation requires additional time in advance, which varies by activity. See the Example Engineering Field Day Schedule for a 7AM-2PM “field day” schedule that is based on a multi-school event held in Sacramento, CA, in April 2015 that hosted ~420 students from 12+ elementary schools. You may want to customize the plan and schedule for your situation, perhaps setting up a more or less complex event, drawing on different or fewer activities.

Planning Suggestions and Tips:

• Arrange for the preparation of student team project submissions for each event in advance of the field day, as specified in the 6 activity write-ups. The various activities require different amounts of preparation time. Using the suggested schedule, any given student can participate in up to four events.
• Each activity write-up provides its own information and attachments for that event’s construction and competition rules and guidelines that cover topics such as project construction, eligibility criteria, testing conditions and judging/scoring rubrics.
• Arrange for volunteers and helpers (organization and judging). Each activity needs to be overseen by a lead teacher/volunteer since during each period, numerous competitions are being held concurrently in different school/classroom locations. Before the day of the event, get them schedules and rubrics so they know what they’re doing, where and when (including 7AM arrival that day).
• If possible, invite engineering professors, engineering students and/or practicing engineers from local colleges and engineering firms to the engineering field day (or to be volunteers and judges!) so that the children meet scholars and professionals, which plants the seeds for engineering futures.
• Plan on about an hour of preparation time before beginning the field day to make sure all activity stations, check-in, awards and lunches are set up and organized before the children arrive.
• Plan on about 30 minutes for check-in. Have students check-in their projects and register for the day. Registration includes providing nametags to place on the projects and a schedule of the events students are signed up to participate in during the day. It is helpful to prepare for each student a nametag that also lists the events s/he is participating in during each period to minimize confusion and misplaced students. Provide designated locations for students to drop off their belongings and pre-made projects. Also have teachers check-in so that they can gather their students and help direct them to their first locations.
• Allow about 15 minutes for a welcome and orientation to all participants and visitors.
• During the day, events are held in four, 45-minute blocks with 10-minute passing periods between the activities so students have time to travel to the next competition site. Students participate in up to four competitions, provided they have projects prepared for each.
• At each event location, the lead begins by verifying that each student group submission meets the eligibility criteria set forth in that activity’s competition rules. Furthermore, it is helpful if the lead teacher has a master schedule with a list of all the students and the activities they are signed up to participate in to safeguard against confusion that might result from lost name tags.
• Depending on the popularity of each event, stagger the schedule to facilitate students’ ability to participate in multiple events without time conflicts. For example, the attached schedule provides for two runoffs of each of the 6 activities. Students who opt to participate in fewer than three events need to be occupied for the periods in between. For these times, plan ahead to have non-competitive “float” activities to occupy them and/or encourage them to observe the other events. Example float exercises include What a Drag! (plastic bag parachutes), Head’s Up (cut/folded paper airplanes) and Static Cling (cereal and charged combs)—or other TeachEngineering activities and sprinkles.
• As an additional competition, consider incorporating a math test for each participating grade level in the field day; see the Attachments section for example tests. Adding this event enables students to demonstrate their capabilities in a way that may not be captured in the other events. Including the math test requires either adding an additional period to the schedule or dedicating the first period to administering the math test to all students. If doing the latter, realize that doing that limits each student to participating in a maximum of three activities.
• After all activities are completed, provide a 45-minute lunch period, during which time the judges, volunteers and/or organizers determine the winners of each competition.
• Conclude the day with a 45-minute awards ceremony to recognize all of the competition victors.

Worksheets and Attachments

Assessment

Each of the 6 events (activities) has its own assessment suggestions, many in the form of pre/post quizzes. See the specific activities.

Overall Event Assessment

Teacher/Volunteer Survey: To evaluate the event as a whole, supply teachers and volunteers with the seven-question Overall Event Assessment Survey to get feedback from people closely involved in the event, which helps you make improvements for the next time.

Copyright

Contributors

Supporting Program

Acknowledgements

The contents of this digital library curriculum were developed by the Renewable Energy Systems Opportunity for Unified Research Collaboration and Education (RESOURCE) project in the College of Engineering under National Science Foundation GK-12 grant no. DGE 0948021. However, these contents do not necessarily represent the policies of the National Science Foundation, and you should not assume endorsement by the federal government.