Young engineers get to grips with the Engineering Design Process!
“The best day ever!” was feedback from primary pupils that attended a brand new experience where they worked alongside their teachers and graduate engineers to ask, imagine & plan, create and improve!
The EDP underpins Engineering Educates Farmvention challenge, and is an ideal way to support pupils to think and work as engineers.
“Our children came back absolutely enthused and buzzing about science. It was a fantastic opportunity for children… All who now truly believe they are on their way to be engineers. ”
Building on SEERIH’s research with the Royal Academy of Engineering, Julie Wiskow and Dr Lynne Bianchi led a series of tasks where the Engineering Design Process and Engineering Habits of Mind came to life in the context of the National Curriculum.
On this day, a ‘Masterclass’ approach was taken that involved teachers working and learning with pupils, and enabled specific professional development focused on embedding engineering practices through Design Technology and Science with the mainstream school curriculum. In this way, the benefits of the day translated not just to the pupils, but to the teachers who took the learning back to their own classroom and use the skills in future Design Technology and Science lessons.
Key messages
Pupils won’t be as familiar with the way engineers work and think in the same way they have good understanding of working scientifically. Take time to compare and contrast the difference between the plan-do-review enquiry cycle and the EDP
Practical, hands-on activities bring the engineering design process to life. On this occasion pupils used familiar science equipment - wires, motors and recycled resources and had opportunity to create a simple machine. Pupils weren’t given a design to follow, they had chance to tinker, make prototypes and improve 3D objects
Talk was key - there was a real buzz in the room. So much learning and thinking comes through pupils talking about what they wanted to try out, why they thought it would work, what happened and what they could do differently to improve their machine
Feeling inspired?
Take a look at Engineering Educates and the sessions on Design Technology, Science, Mathematics and Computer Programming. Its not too late to get involved or start your planning for next year.