Some fruits, such as tomatoes, self-pollinate. But three-quarters of all crops, including almonds, apples, lemons and squash, require birds and insects—particularly bees—to spread pollen from one flower to another.
“No bees, no almonds. It’s that simple,” almond grower Brian Paddock, owner of Capay Hills Orchard near Esparto, California, told National Public Radio in a March, 3, 2017, broadcast.
Such cross-pollination increases genetic diversity. Thus, for many farmers, the mysterious collapse of bee colonies nationwide — in 2016, the United States lost 44 percent of all honeybee colonies — is a big problem.
Eijiro Miyako, an engineer at Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, has generated a lot of buzz lately for developing a robotic worker bee. At four centimeters (roughly 1.6 inches) across, his mechanical pollinator is much chunkier than even a fat bumble bee. But in a test, its body’s gel-coated horse hairs could pick up and release pollen between Japanese lilies like its real counterpart.
While Miyako has yet to confirm that the pollination produces seeds, he envisions that one day his remote-controlled drones, outfitted with computer vision to recognize flowers on their own, could work alongside real bees.
Still, many hurdles remain. Artificial pollination, as it exists today, is a tedious process. Using a brush to apply the pollen, a person can pollinate five to 10 almond trees a day. Considering that each almond flower on millions of acres must be pollinated to set the nut, it would take a “mind-boggling” swarm of robotic drones to replace bees.
Quinn McFrederick, an entomologist at the University of California, Riverside, sees potential for eventually using drones to pollinate commercial crops, especially if programmed with artificial intelligence. But he’d rather see effort expended on protecting natural pollinators rather than developing new technology. “I would not like to live in a world where bees are replaced by plastic machines. Let’s focus on protecting the biodiversity we still have left.”
Another problem: There’s no battery small enough to power robo-bees, reports PBS’s NOVA in this short clip.
This article includes a First Look report by Thomas K. Grose from the March/April issue of ASEE’s Prism magazine.
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Bees are among North America’s most important agricultural asset, increasing yields in roughly three-quarters of our crops.
But as Rutgers University researchers reveal, a diversity of pollinators is key. In a National Science Foundation-funded study, a team led by ecology professor Rachael Winfree looked at dozens of mid-Atlantic watermelon, cranberry, and blueberry farms. They found that on any one farm, five or six wild bee species were able to provide half of the pollination – but the rest of the work depended on 100 other bee species. (Many farmers use domesticated, non-native honey bee colonies to help with crop pollination.)
Biodiversity isn’t just important for farmers. James Hung, who received NSF funding as a doctoral student working in David Holway‘s lab at the University of California San Diego, investigated the effects of urbanization on changes in wild bee diversity over time. His research showed that human activity breaks up bee habitats and reduces diversity, affecting pollination services. Hung also found that bees living in urban scrub fragments possess relatively less variation in behaviors and food preferences, limiting the range and quality of their pollination services.
“Farmers can plant fallow fields and road edges with flowering plants, preferably plants whose flowering periods overlap,” Winfree says. “They can leave piles of excavated earth when they dig a ditch or a pond, which will give ground-nesting bees a place to live and flowering plants a place to grow.” Farmers also can reduce pesticide use, particularly during crop bloom when more bees are buzzing around their fields.
The average person can help, too, by filling their gardens with diverse, native plant species and limiting pesticides.
Prizes: $50,000 scholarship for the grand champion; $15,000 Lego Education and National Geographic awards
Finalists announced: March (state), April (regional), and May (global) 2019
The Google Science Fair got underway in mid-September, offering students between 13 and 18 a chance to compete for scholarships, travel, and other prizes.
Students must have an Internet connection and free Google account to participate. Projects can come from across all scientific fields, including biology, computer science, and anthropology, and can be submitted in English, Spanish, French, German, or Italian. Click HERE for the rules.
The deadline to submit projects online is DECEMBER 2018, with regional and global winners announced in April 2019.
Run with Lego Education, National Geographic, Scientific American, and Virgin Galactic, the contest has produced some impressive past finalists, including one Canadian teen who created a flashlight powered by heat from the user’s palm on the handle.
The Google Science Fair may reflect the experience of Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who created the search engine as a research project when both were graduate students at Stanford University in 1966.
As a teacher, you’re supposed to have all the answers–but sometimes, you just don’t. What if you could tap a network of engineering experts and seasoned STEM teachers for inspiration, instructional tips, and advice?
That’s the vision behind LinkEngineering, the National Academy of Engineering’s online professional learning portal for PreK-12 teachers.
Tune in Tuesday,August 21, 2018, at 4 p.m. EDT for “Let’s Talk NGSS” with NSTA’s Ted Willard. Click HEREto register.
Also check out the LinkEngineering blog post (May 10, 2018), “Learn to Teach Engineering: Professional Development Opportunities for PK-12 Teachers,” for summer programs, conferences, museum programs, and other ways to integrate engineeering into your STEM classes.
Activity from Day 4 of the National Park Service’s Biodiversity – Bee Week activity guide for middle school students. See Scaling and Extension activities at the end for links to hand pollinator design challenges for younger students.
Summary
Middle school students design a robotic “bee” that would have the potential to pollinate crops in place of a native bee, and evaluate where their model falls short of real pollinators.
Grade level: 6 – 8
Time: one 45 minute class period
Learning objectives
After doing this activity, students will be able to:
analyze parts needed by a robotic bee to operate efficiently
describe different structures and functions of their robotic bee
identify and factor in design constraints
create a robotic bee that would be able to accomplish pollination
Learning standards
Next Generation Science Standards
Developing Possible Solutions: Models of all kinds are important for testing solutions. (MS-ETS1-4)
Optimizing the Design Solution: Although one design may not perform the best across all tests, identifying the characteristics of the design that performed the best in each test can provide useful information for the redesign process—that is, some of those characteristics may be incorporated into the new design. (MS-ETS1-3)
The iterative process of testing the most promising solutions and modifying what is proposed on the basis of the test results leads to greater refinement and ultimately to an optimal solution. (MS-ETS1-4)
Introduction/Motivation
Bees are vital to agriculture, pollinating some $16 billion worth of crops just in the United States each year. But bee colonies have suddenly collapsed, worrying farmers and scientists. What if there aren’t enough bees to do the job?
That’s where agricultural, mechanical, and electrical engineers come in, designing mechanical or hand pollination systems that can pollinate plants when insects are scarce, or for use in greenhouses and with special plants like vanilla, which must be grown away from natural pollinators.
As engineers, you’ve been called in by farmers to develop a pollination system that will help deal with the loss of honey bees due to colony collapse. The first step is to understand a bit about how bees work, then design a replacement.
The design challenge: “Engineer” a bee using different building materials and reflect on the adaptations honey bees have in order to accomplish pollination and survive.
Warm-up: Learn about bee anatomy and engineering efforts to develop mechanical bees and other pollinators.
Robert Wood is an electrical engineer and founder of Harvard University’s Microrobtics Lab. He makes tiny robots that fly, including RoboBees that one day could swarm into disaster areas and help save survivors. The machines have a housefly-size thorax, three-centimeter wingspan, and a weight of 60 milligrams. The latest prototype flaps wings 120 times a second, hovers, and flies along preordained paths. He was featured among National Geographic’s Explorers in the video above and in this talk on the “mechanical side” of artificial intelligence.
Introduce the challenge:
Bee colonies have been mysteriously collapsing, putting farms at risk. How would you create an artificial bee to fertilize crops if there weren’t enough real pollinators to do the job?
When thinking about engineering a bee, you must consider the phrase “form follows function.” What adaptations (form) do bees have to move from plant to plant gathering nectar and in the process pollinating plants (function)? In order to pollinate plants, bees need (1) a power source to provide energy for movement, (2) the ability to move from plant to plant (wings, legs, etc…), (3) ability to see a flower in ultraviolet light to see the flowers, (4) ability to land on that flower, and (5) the ability to collect the pollen to carry from plant to plant for pollination. In the space below, sketch out how an engineered bee will look and label all the parts they will need to accomplish the functions listed above
Assessment
Have students work in pairs to brainstorm three things their “engineered bees” need to be effective pollinators; two problems with releasing engineered bees into nature; and one way to solve a problem that may result from releasing engineered bees into nature.
Honey Bee Human: A Design Challenge. In this activity developed by a Florida teacher for fourth graders, students in grades 3 – 5 develop 2-D models (illustrations) of a hand pollinator that could substitute for real bees.
Activity courtesy of C-PALMS, Florida’s platform for teacher resources. Click HERE for PDF. This version includes additional material inserted by ASEE’s eGFI Teachers editor.
NOTE: For a 3-D prototype design challenge, please see Engineering is Elementary, from the Museum of Science, Boston, which developed a four-part unit that challenges students in grades 1 to 5 to build a hand-operated pollinator – or I Scream You Scream, Ringwood, Ill., second grade teacher and NSTA contributor Jeri Faber’s end-of-unit activity to design a pollinator for vanilla plants, which are grown away from natural pollinators to produce flavorful beans.
For older elementary students, consider including Honeybee Mystery, a lesson from Oregon that focuses on Colony Collapse Disorder and a performance task that involves writing an advocacy letter to local, state, or federal legislators proposing solutions.
Summary
Students in grades 3 to 5 learn about the engineering design process by making a 2-dimensional model (graphic illustration) of an apparatus that will pollinate a field.
Grade level: 4 (3-5)
Time: 2 hours
Learning objectives
Students will:
create a 2-D model of a system to pollinate a “blacktop” size field of plants.
keep careful records as they design, analyze, and modify the models based on the analysis.
present the designs at an engineer conference/peer review session, discussing merits of their design, citing features of their design and how it would work in the real world.
evaluate other designs from the point of view of the plants or farmer, identifying at least 2 positive impacts and 2 negative impacts over the course of the presentations.
decide on the best solution to the problem of less natural pollination due to honeybee colony collapse and cite specific positive impacts (based on evidence) in support of the solution.
gain a deeper understanding of pollination, its importance in the food chain, and its impact on living organisms.
Learning standards
Next Generation Science Standards
Construct a model based on evidence to represent a proposed object or tool
Guiding Questions
How do honeybees impact our lives?
How can we do the job of honeybees?
Introduction/Motivation
In science class, you’ve been learning about the important role bees play in plant pollination. But what if there aren’t enough bees to do the job?Agricultural, mechanical, and electrical engineers design mechanical or hand pollination systems that can pollinate plants when insects are scarce, or to use on plants grown in greenhouses and special plants like vanilla that must be grown away from natural pollinators.
As junior graphic design engineers at the state Department of Agriculture, you’ve been called in by farmers to develop a pollination system that will help deal with the loss of honey bees due to colony collapse.
1. Ask students to make a list of the plants they eat, as many as they can write in 2 minutes. Then have them make a list of all the plants that are eaten for food by any animals, and the animal that eats that food. For example: grass—cow, corn—chicken, hay—sheep, etc. Give them a time limit (3 minutes), as nearly every plant is eaten for food by some animal.
2. Show the students some fruits and vegetables that we eat every day (apple, orange, tomato, etc.). Images of the fruits would also work. What is important is that the students are able to see the seeds in the fruit. If there are seeds, there were flowers! Have the students work in teams of 4 to highlight the plants on their lists that have flowers. Most will not realize that many of the plants we eat are seed-bearing.
3. Show a video or image of bee pollinating a plant. Some options are:
PBS produced a video about the honey bee colony collapse called Silence of the Bees. An introduction to the video is available for free on their website.
For older students, introduce these two short videos address the role that bees play in nature and about why bees are disappearing. The first
video gives an overview of the importance of bees. The second video discusses about the sudden and mysterious drop in honey bee populations (Colony Collapse Disorder) and what might be causing bees to disappear: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdfMkr1pXrM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P7cYGjI8Fw
4. Review plant reproduction. Give each student a flower with visible pollen cells and a white piece of paper. Hibiscus are easy to find in Florida and are good for “dissection.”
5. Challenge the students to collect some pollen on the white paper. Don’t tell them how to do it—that’s part of the challenge. They should already know that the yellow, grain-like substances are the pollen cells.
6. Tell students that most flowers cannot pollinate themselves—the pollen from one flower must go to a different flower to be effective. Some flowers have both male and female structures in one flower, but they still need pollen from another flower in order to reproduce. In most cases, a flower cannot use its own pollen to reproduce; it must get it from another flower. That’s where honeybees and other insects come in.
Teacher’s tip: This would be a good spot for a paired reading lesson on “Honeybee Colony Collapse” from National Geographic for Kids.
7. Ask the students the following:
What will happen if we lose the majority of the honeybees? You might consider making a class flow chart, such as:
Honey bee numbers drop
leads to
less pollination
leads to
less seeds
leads to
less food
Who will this affect? (All animals) How? (The whole food chain depends on plants.)
How can we get the pollen that you collected on your white paper to another flower so that it can be used by the new flower for reproduction? Talk to your team and begin discussing ideas.
Introduce Challenge Question: How could you design a machine to do the job of pollinating the flowers on a field the size of our school blacktop?
Investigate: What will the teacher do to give students an opportunity to develop, try, revise, and implement their own methods to gather data?
Teacher note: This Challenge asks students to make a 2-dimensional graphic illustration of their design (a scientific illustration, complete with labels and other helpful information to explain how their design will work). Students are the “initial design” team. They draw and label their design, get feedback from their peers (other designers), then modify the design, taking into account all the feedback received. This is still a “real-world” engineering application. Many design engineers never put their hands on the 3-D version of their design. Some examples are car design engineers and architects, who use computer-aided design tools instead of 3-D prototypes.
Because the process of designing a 2-dimensional model is a bit different, the Engineer/Design Challenge Process for 2-dimensional Models flow chart is slightly different from other Engineering Design Challenges.
1. Explain to the students that they are junior graphic design engineers at the State Department of Agriculture. [You can put real state and location, such as the Florida State Department of Agriculture in Talahasee.] They’ve been called in by farmers to develop a pollination system that will help deal with the loss of honey bees due to colony collapse. Tell them that after all the groups develop a possible solution, we will have a review session to present all the solutions. After the presentations, there will be a time for modifying the designs before the final designs are due.
Phase 1. Explain that we are now in Phase 1: Identifying the Problem. In this stage, engineers identify the problem and any things they need to consider when they design their solution. These considerations are part of the “specifications” for the solution. After they identify the specifications, they brainstorm possible solutions. Engineers usually brainstorm many solutions before they settle on the best one to build. Stress that they shouldn’t stop at the first idea they get—they should think of several ideas before choosing the one that best fits the specifications. After they decide on a solution, engineers make a drawing of their idea so they can begin to work out the details of the design (material needed, size, etc.). In many cases, they would build a model of their design, then test the model.
3. Point out that in this case, though, we are the initial design team. We will be making 2-dimensional models. This means we won’t actually be building a prototype. We will be drawing our design, getting feedback from our peers (other designers), then modifying the design, taking into account all the feedback received. The goal is to clearly communicate how the design works.
4. Show them Leonardo da Vinci’s sketches of an ornithopter in the 1480s. Although da Vinci drew very detailed plans, he lacked the technology to build a prototype. However, we are able to understand his plans because of the details he left in his journal.
5. Distribute copies of the Engineer Report—Automatic Pollinator(this can also be done as part of a science notebook). Even though they are working as a team, each student completes his/her own report. (See Accommodations, below, for options)
6. Guide the class in developing the question: How could you design a machine to do the job of pollinating the flowers on a field the size of our school blacktop?
7. With the students, brainstorm a list of considerations for the design. Some possibilities include:
The pollinator has to collect pollen from one flower’s stamen and carry it, placing it on the pistil of another flower. Remind them of the earlier “pollen collecting” activity.
The pollinator cannot damage the flower.
The pollinator must be powered by hand.
The pollinator must be operated/carried by one person.
The pollinator must pollinate a field the size of our blacktop (or playground, parking lot, etc.) in a reasonable amount of time. For this, you might decide to take the students out to the “field area” and let them “walk their designs” to see approximately how fast they would need to move, how much area they’d have to cover, etc. Then have students come up with a consensus on an amount of time that would be “reasonable” for your selected field.
8. Tell students that, as Project Head, you cannot give them ideas, but you can help clarify. One idea is to tell them that you will only be able to ask questions, not answer any. For example, if a student asks if you think their design will work, respond with, “Does it meet our considerations?”
9. Set an amount of time for the initial designs (one class meeting time is sufficient). Remind students that the plans should be very detailed so that someone else could pick up their plan and understand it.
10. Students meet in their teams to begin brainstorming and complete the rest of Phase 1 on the Engineer Report. They don’t get the “official” design paper until they’ve brainstormed several ideas and chosen the one they want to draw. As students are ready to begin to draw their design, have them come to you to describe their idea. Ask: “How does your design do the bee’s job?”
Assessment
Formative assessment—Does the student understand the pollination process? Does your design clearly communicate your idea? How can you make it clearer? Educative assessment
11. As you approve ideas, give students the larger construction paper to use for their official design. Remind them to use words to describe what each part of the design is doing.
Who will present the idea?
Who will be collecting the feedback?
Analyze: How will the teacher help students determine a way to represent, analyze, and interpret the data they collect?Phase 21. Gather the student teams together and tell them that we are moving into Phase 2: Modifying. Refer to the Engineering/Design Challenge Process for 2-dimensional Models graphic. Explain that design engineers get feedback from their peers before they present their ideas to their customer. The purpose of this Conference/Peer Review Session is to have someone else take a close look at your design to work out all the “bugs” in a design before showing it to the customer. They get specific feedback, and then modify their design to fix any identified issues while keeping the things that fit the considerations. After modifying, they go back to get feedback again, continuing the peer review—get feedback—modify cycle until they feel their solution is complete.2. With the students, decide on a way to record feedback on the Modifying, Step 1 section of the Engineer Report.3. As they finish their designs, have them prepare their initial presentation. They will need to decide:
4. At a time determined by the Project Head, bring the engineer teams together for a Conference/Peer Review Session. One team member presents the idea, while the other members record the questions or concerns brought up by their peers.
5. After all teams have presented, teams meet to decide on modifications. They complete Modifying, Step 2. One note: Some students may have a hard time with modifying their current design and instead want to start over with a new design. There is usually something that works in every design—help the team find those things that they can build on. Starting over with a new design each time defeats the purpose of the Engineering/Design Process.
6. Repeat the Conference/Peer Review Session with a different student doing the presentation. Encourage the “peers” to ask for details about how the pollinator will work in the field.
7. Allow time for students to finalize modifications of their design.
Teacher Tip: Arrange with another class to be your customers. They get the final designs and make comments about the clarity of the design. Students can use these for their Final Evaluations.
More benefit than harm to the plants
Ease of use
Amount of time it takes to pollinate
Closure: What will the teacher do to bring the lesson to a close? How will the students make sense of the investigation?
1. Gather the student teams together and tell them that we are moving into Phase 3: Presentation. Refer to the Engineering/Design Challenge Process graphic. Explain that, after modifications are completed, engineers present their final design for “public comment.” This public comment could be with the customer who ordered the project, the people who will be using the project, or some other interested party. If you’ve made arrangements with another class, this is the time. If not, you might consider hanging the designs in the hallway of your school. Help the students see that this is when the designs must “speak for themselves.”
2. Explain the Engineering Feasibility Report (see Summative Assessment). Remind the students of the considerations the class developed in Investigate: Step 7. Have the students think about each consideration; have them rate their design with a score of 0, 1, or 2 on each consideration:
2 = This design fully meets this consideration.
1 = This design partially meets this consideration.
0 = This design does not meet this consideration.
For each rating, the student should include evidence to support the rating given.
3. Then have the students complete the Summative Assessment prompt in the Science Notebooks:Which of the presented designs would be the most effective at pollinating our field?
Have the students give evidence from the Engineers’ Conference/Peer Review Session to support his/her evaluation.
Students should take into account the following issues:
Note: Students may decide that none of the solutions presented are feasible because they don’t give enough benefits. This is an acceptable conclusion, as long as it is supported with evidence from the Conference/Peer Review.4. Teacher evaluation: Use the attached Engineering Design Process Evaluation Rubric to assess students.
Summative Assessment
1. Student self-evaluation: After the Final Design Presentation, have each student evaluate the “feasibility” of her/his project. Students will discuss the strengths of their designs and the drawbacks to using it in the real world. Use the list of considerations generated in Investigate: Step 7 as a guide for the students as they decide if their automatic pollinator would help solve the problem of honeybee colony collapse. For example, if one of the considerations is that the pollinator can only be operated by one person, but it is too bulky, the student may decide that the design is not feasible. This is not intended as a correct/incorrect assignment. The goal is for the student to progress in giving an objective evaluation of his/her own projects, using the challenge considerations as a guide.
2. Teacher evaluation, part 1 (notebook): Have students decide which of the presented solutions would be the most feasible, giving evidence from the Engineers’ Conference/Peer Review Session to support his/her evaluation. Students should take into account the following issues:
More benefit than harm to the plants
Ease of use
Amount of time it takes to pollinate
NOTE: Students may decide that none of the solutions presented are feasible because they don’t give enough benefits. This is an acceptable conclusion, as long as it is supported with evidence from the Conference/Peer Review.
3. Teacher evaluation, part 2: Use the attached Engineering Design Process Evaluation Rubric to assess students.
Formative Assessment
Ask the students, “Why are bees important to us?”
Students may mention that bees pollinate flowers, and flowers make things pretty or smell nice, not realizing that plants are essential parts of food chains and pollination is essential for flowering plants’ reproduction.
Feedback to Students
As students are brainstorming their possible solutions, ask them:
How is your solution modeling the bee’s behavior?
How might it help the plant?
How might it hurt the plant?
How many plants would you estimate that it could pollinate in one hour?
How easy is it to operate?
How will your solution help solve the problems created by honeybee colony collapse?
While you can guide the students in looking at their solutions from the point of view of multiple stakeholders, you still want to take care that you don’t limit their ideas. As students bring you their Engineer Reports (at “Project Head approval” points), discuss their work to that point.
How will this help the plant?
How might this hurt the plant?
Is the design or modification “doable” within the limits of the classroom?
Have they been thorough in their analysis of the testing?
Based on our discussion, feedback, and your reflections, how might you use these ideas to modify or improve your design?
Accommodations
Students with physical impairments will be on teams with non-disabled peer to enable them to fully realize their ideas on paper.
The teacher may choose to have a student complete each section of the Engineer Report and Summative Assessment orally.
Extensions
Some engineers may develop designs that can move to the prototype stage. If a team wants to try to develop their design into a prototype, work with them to problem-solve the feasibility of building a prototype.
For a 3-D prototype design challenge, please see Engineering is Elementary, from the Museum of Science, Boston, which developed a four-part unit that challenges students in grades 1 to 5 to build a hand-operated pollinator.
I Scream You Scream, is Ringwood, Ill., second grade teacher and NSTA contributor Jeri Faber’s end-of-unit activity to design a pollinator for vanilla plants, which are grown away from natural pollinators to produce flavorful beans.
For older elementary students, consider including Honeybee Mystery, a lesson from Oregon that focuses on Colony Collapse Disorder and a performance task that involves writing an advocacy letter to local, state, or federal legislators proposing solutions.
Their work may be invisible when you visit America’s 758 wilderness areas, but engineers have played a key role in preserving and improving access to the country’s most pristine spots.
Consider the U.S. Forest Service, one of three federal agencies that manage nearly 110 million acres of mountains, grasslands, lakes, and woodlands protected by the 50-year-old Wilderness Act. Engineers help design and construct campgrounds, boat docks, and waste-water systems. They have carved thousands of miles of roads through some of the world’s most challenging back country.
Engineers even employ “road ecology” techniques to route wildlife safely across or around traffic. That’s an important undertaking, given that there are more than 1 million collisions involving humans and large animals each year. The National Park Service reconfigured the road in Denali and instituted speed limits to reduce damage to visitors and animals. The forest and park services also created a Wildlife Crossings Toolkit and training video to promote safer passages. And researchers at the University of California, Davis’s Road Ecology Center, among other things, publish a map of road kill ‘hot spots’ – and recently created a Global Road-Kill App to report dead animals.
Wilderness engineers also research and deploy technologies to better protect fragile environments, such as sensors that improve remote monitoring. Forest Service engineers also developed the parachute that smoke jumpers and the military use, as well as a wild-land fire engine. Click HERE to learn more about their work and career pathways.
Hear a Forest Service civil engineer discuss her work:
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This TeachEngineering.org design challenge is the first part of a four-lesson Sustainable Design and Biomimicry in a Desert System unit developed by Vanderbilt University’s bioengineering program. The associated activities culminate in a PowerPoint presentation by each team.
Lesson 1; Designing a Sustainable Guest Village in the Saguaro National Park; Activity 1,
High school students study the desert ecology and then design a permanent guest village within the Saguaro National Park in Arizona. Their designs must provide a true desert experience for visitors while emphasizing sustainable design, protecting the natural environment, and conserving energy and resources.
Grade level: 9-12
Time: 45 minutes, plus several weeks for teams to prepare and present their prototypes
Engineering Connection
This lesson introduces students to the engineering concept of sustainable design. In the course of their research, they will have an opportunity to evaluate solar energy systems, transportation issues, heating and cooling systems, and water conservation. They will be forced to weigh the choice of building materials against manufacturing processes and insulation features. As they are introduced to the concepts of species and their successful adaptations, they will direct their research to desert species and look for clues for promoting comfort in this harsh environment, developing this village with an eye toward low impact and engineering marvel.
Learning objectives
After this activity, students should be able to:
Apply their background knowledge to begin solving the challenge.
Define and explain the importance of sustainable design.
Explain the role biomimicry has for design implementation.
Understand the importance of designing cities and manufacturing products in ways that mimic the way natural systems minimize energy use and recycle products into new, usable forms.
Learning standards
Next Generation Science Standards
Evaluate or refine a technological solution that reduces impacts of human activities on natural systems.
Evaluate a solution to a complex real-world problem based on prioritized criteria and trade-offs that account for a range of constraints, including cost, safety, reliability, and aesthetics, as well as possible social, cultural, and environmental impacts.
International Technology and Engineering Educators Association
Evaluate the design solution using conceptual, physical, and mathematical models at various intervals of the design process in order to check for proper design and to note areas where improvements are needed.
Develop and produce a product or system using a design process.
Evaluate final solutions and communicate observation, processes, and results of the entire design process, using verbal, graphic, quantitative, virtual, and written means, in addition to three-dimensional models.
Materials
Pen and paper for brainstorming ideas with team members
Internet access, to view the following video clips:
Natural Connectionsvideo clip of renowned Harvard ecologist E.O. Wilson as he discusses the importance and balance of ecosystems.
Jane Benyus TED Talk clip introducing the concept of biomimetics and how nature provides a wealth of information about design and efficiency.
Click HERE for teacher’s supplementary PowerPoint presentation on desert ecology.
The desert is often viewed by those unfamiliar with it as a lifeless and stark landscape. Closer inspection reveals that despite extreme environmental conditions, life abounds – and often with organisms with unique and highly successful adaptations that support their existence in ways that science is gaining greater appreciation for. The study of these organisms and their balanced, highly functional ecosystems is viewed as a resource for engineering design of sustainable products and community models.
Just how do these organisms survive and how might humans be able to learn from these highly evolved systems? Why do cacti have ribs and where do animals go in the heat of the day? Who are the members of the community and how is this complicated food web balanced? Can we as humans model our behaviors and practices to live as efficiently as these desert species? Are we able to do so without depleting resources and generating pollution? How closely could we mimic their “lifestyles”?
The Sonoran Desert encompasses more than 100,000 square miles in two countries and five states. It has more than 60 endemic species of mammals, 350 bird species, and 200 plant species. You are asked to consider the special requirements of building within the Saguaro National Park, located outside of Tucson, Arizona. The current park boundary includes more than 91,000 acres and is a protected area.
Design ChallengeThe Saguaro National Park, located within the Sonoran Desert, is accepting bid designs for consideration in the construction of a permanent guest village within the park boundaries. The park administration states that this design must incorporate 10 permanent guest structures for overnight accommodations on a three-acre site located within a central, isolated region of the park. The administration’s intent is to provide a true desert experience for the park guests. They specify that these bids must emphasize sustainable design, energy, and resource conservation, while continuing to provide for the protection of the natural environment and species of the area. Your architectural firm wants to be awarded this bid. What design strengths will make the committee choose your work? At this point in the design process, cost does not need to be considered. Your main goal is to create a sustainable village that does not greatly affect the natural environment of the Sonoran Desert.Towards the end of this class period, you will gather with your team and begin to organize your thoughts. You will create PowerPoint® slides to present your ideas. Good luck!Tucson deert eco-village:
Procedure
Background
This activity introduces students to the topics that we will begin to cover in greater depth over the days to follow. Students should formulate new and deeper questions as the lessons advance. Competition can be heightened by telling the students that their bid designs will be judged and the winning team’s bid will be awarded some recognition deemed appropriate.
A student-generated PowerPoint presentation [click HERE for PDF version] is provided to assist teachers in understanding the range of topics that students may choose to present from. It is meant only to be illustrative.
Plan on 45 minutes to introduce the challenge and activity, and place students into groups of four. Then have students continue to work with their team members for the next several weeks, preparing their final designs in the form of a PowerPoint presentation—which concludes the Go Public portion of the design process. Click here for presentation grading rubric.
Before the Activity
This activity does not require any special preparation or handouts. A grading rubric is provided for the students’ Go Public PowerPoint presentations.
With the Students
Image: University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Solar Decathlon 2013 entry.
You have just listened to three leading experts in the field of ecology, biomimicry, and the societal need for sustainable design. Your design solution must encompass aspects from each of these areas. Your group should begin by asking yourselves what is unique about the area of this construction. What is distinctive about a desert compared with building in one of our other national parks? What species live there and how do we guarantee their protection? Is it important to understand their needs? Are they able to survive in this locale due to any special adaptations and do those adaptations suggest any particular approaches for our design concept? Begin a list of these questions and your initial responses. Your list will grow and shift as we complete the lessons of this module. Continue to modify it and let this be the stimulus of your research efforts. This is just the beginning of a much larger activity. At this stage, you will begin combining any knowledge you currently have to help solve this challenge by brainstorming with your team members. You will continue to receive more information throughout the following activities and lessons which will aid you in finding a resolution to the challenge question.
Describe the activity by presenting the introduction for the activity as discussed above.
Divide them into teams of four.
Explain that they will work on their challenges over the length of this module and that it will culminate in their creating a PowerPoint presentation presented as an actual bid from the architectural firm that they represent.
How does a desert differ from other regions of the U.S.?
What special conditions do you identify with a desert?
Will these conditions need special attention in the design of your guest village?
Identify products and building technologies that have been marketed as “sustainable” and/or “green.” Evaluate the effectiveness of these products and technologies in a desert climate.
Assessment
Grade students’ final projects by using the rubric.
Activity Scaling
For lower grades, provide direction for their research sources.
The contents of this digital library curriculum were developed under National Science Foundation RET grant nos. 0338092 and 0742871. However, these contents do not necessarily represent the policies of the NSF, and you should not assume endorsement by the federal government.
ASEE’s 2018 NSTA STEM Forum panelists Karen Davis, Karen Johnsen, and Andrew Reid.
When Karen Davis, director of career services at Syracuse University’s College of Engineering and Computer Science, started out, the profession was dominated by “a bunch of white guys” and her engineering school had something like 14 males for every female student.
“It’s not like that anymore,” she assured educators attending the American Society for Engineering Education’s panel discussion at the National Science Teachers Association’s 2018 STEM Forum in Philadelphia, Pa., July 11 to 13. In some engineering schools, Davis noted, the ratio of men to women is 50-50 at the undergraduate level.
Joining her to discuss “Recruiting and Retaining Minorities and Women in Engineering” were two other professionals who have successfully inspired women and minorities to pursue engineering and stick with it: Karen Johnsen, manager of talent development for GE Healthcare in Milwaukee, and Andrew Reid, senior planning analyst at New York’s Consolidated Edison.
The panelists engaged in a lively give-and-take with the audience, and shared ideas about what teachers can do to keep their students interested in a STEM career – and their lasting impact on students.
To be successful, students must have some background in math and science, but also “a certain attitude and mindset,” Davis explained. Study skills also are a must. “I can’t say that enough!”
Students also need mentors, to know there are people out there to whom they can go… and who will firmly but lovingly rein in the party going and hold them to higher standards.
The panel also tackled the subject of failure, which is part of the engineering culture. “Failure is a natural thing,” noted Johnsen, who likened it to testing out a model and “failing to improve.” Classrooms should make failure safe for students, so they’ll understand it as part of the learning process and develop skills to troubleshoot and fix problems.
The sessions concluded with the panel thanking the teachers. “I can’t say how much your work means to us,” Johnsen, the moderator, said.”You’re educating the engineers of the future!”
test results leads to greater refinement and ultimately to an optimal solution. (MS-ETS1-4)
