Engineering Ethics: Evaluating Popular Inventions
High school students analyze an assortment of popular inventions to determine their intended beneficiaries as well as who has access to, might be harmed by, and is profiting from them. They then develop and apply class standards for ethical design to re-imagine the devices in a way that would do more good for humanity.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection photo of VeriScan facial recognition tablet at Dulles International airport by Glenn Fawcett
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Tags: Class Activities, design constraints, Drones, engineering ethics, genetic engineering, Grades 9-12, Lesson Plan, National Society of Professional Engineers, Presentations
A classic engineering challenge involves designing and building devices that can deliver necessary goods to “Toxic Island,” an island that has been quarantined by the World Health Organization due to a nasty outbreak of disease. Working within specific constraints, including limited materials, middle school students follow the engineering design process to design, test, and improve a device that can deliver “medicine” and other vital supplies accurately and quickly without touching either the water or island.
Students in grades 6 to 8 follow the engineering design process while combining mechanical engineering and bioengineering to create a new wristwatch face for a visually impaired student at their school. Teams present their designs to the class and construct prototypes of a watch face that doesn’t rely on sight to tell time.
High school students practice human-centered design by imagining, designing, and prototyping a product to improve classroom accessibility for the visually impaired. The begin by wearing low-vision simulation goggles (or blindfolds) and walking with canes to navigate through a classroom in order to experience what it feels like to be visually impaired. 
Students in grades 6 to 11 explore the practical, scientific, ethical, and environmental issues that emerge in creating “smart” buildings that meld environmentally responsible design with cutting-edge computing technology known as the Internet of Things (IoT). Working in teams, they design and perhaps later implement smart-building solutions to make their school a better place to inhabit.
Whether its protecting their safety, spotting scams, or taking an online course, all students can benefit from “digital citizenship” skills. San Francisco-based nonprofit Common Sense has,teamed up with Harvard’s Graduate School of Education to create a free curriculum for kindergarten through high school.
This simple catapult activity for students in grades 4 – 8 teaches them how energy is transferred when a plastic spoon is pulled back, then released, rocketing its payload — a single marshmallow.
Middle school students learn the concept of dead reckoning by using vectors to plot a course based on a time and speed, then correct their positions with vectors representing winds and currents. Includes a link to related activities on navigation and creating nautical charts.
In this lesson, students in grades 2 – 7 use simple materials to design and make model sailboats that must stay upright and sail straight in a testing tank. They will learn the basic components of a ship and how design represents a tradeoff between speed, stability, and ease of handling.
