Three Little Pigs Design Challenge
Posted on September 29th, 2017 by Mary Lord
Elementary students act as civil engineers to design and build a house that the big, bad wolf cannot blow down. If time allows, they can redesign and test their structures.
Filed under: Class Activities, Grades K-5 | Comments Off on Three Little Pigs Design Challenge
Tags: Civil Engineering, Class Activities, Design, design challenge, ELA, Engineering Design Process, forces, Grades K-5, literacy, materials, NGSS, structures, three little pigs, wind
Build a robotic hand, use cars to teach force and motion, and learn about the American Society for Engineering Education’s free resources for teachers. Join us for a day of hands-on sessions designed to help you put the “E” in your STEM classes at the National Science Teachers Association’s regional conferences in Milwaukee (November 9-11, 2017) and New Orleans (December 1, 2017). And see highlights from ASEE Engineering Day at NSTA’s Baltimore conference on Friday, October 6.
The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) website just got an upgrade, with teacher-vetted examples of quality lessons, clearer navigation system, and parent guides in Spanish.
After Hurricane Harvey inundated Houston with historic rains, engineering researchers Texas A&M University offered a quick, inexpensive way to survey the damage. They deployed drones – lots of them – in the biggest squadron ever used in an official disaster response. 
Alice Zhai’s curiosity about Hurricane Sandy’s destructiveness led to an outstanding high school science fair project – and a collaboration with a NASA scientist that produced a journal paper outlining a new statistical model for better predicting the economic damage from big storms.
Hurricanes, earthquakes, and other destructive events offer timely “teachable moments” about the role of engineers in improving weather forecasts and reducing the toll from natural disasters. eGFI Teachers’s collection of activities, feature articles, and other resources can help you integrate engineering into your classes – and inspire the next generation of “crisis” engineers.
In this engineering design challenge about building in hurricane-prone regions, students learn that a solid base helps stabilize a structure by constructing, testing, and redesigning a tower that can support a tennis ball at least 18 inches off the ground while withstanding the wind from a fan.
Working in groups of 8, middle school students use their senses to describe and predict the weather, then act as state park engineers and design/build “backyard weather stations” to gather data to make actual weather forecasts.
Applications are now open for the Science and Engineering Apprenticeship Program (SEAP), a paid summer research program for high school students administered by the American Society for Engineering Education. Sophomores, juniors, and seniors are selected to spend eight weeks working alongside professional engineers and research scientists on real projects at one of 25 Department of Navy labs around the country. Apply by October 31, 2017.
