Minneapolis, MN
August 23, 2022
June 26, 2022
June 29, 2022
3
10.18260/1-2--40933
https://peer.asee.org/40933
193
Joe Muskin is the Education Coordinator for the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois. He has experience in both industry and pre-college education before becoming involved in educational outreach at the University. In his current role, Joe received many awards including NSTA's Distinguished Informal Science Educator Award for his outstanding work bringing motivational educational experiences to students across the country.
Jessica G Perez is the Associate Director of Education and Inclusivity for the Engineering Research Center for Power Optimization of Electro-thermal Systems (POETS). Dr. Perez earned a B.S. in Biological Engineering from MIT and a Ph.D. in Chemical and Biological Engineering from Northwestern University. Her professional interests include engineering education, inclusive teaching, and DEI best practices in higher ed.
Students will often engage more robustly when they have a hand in driving an investigation into a real-world problem. When the lessons form a coherent sequence where each step arises from the students’ questions and serves to move closer to the solution, students see the process of engineering first hand. This can be facilitated by the storyline method (https://www.nextgenstorylines.org/what-are-storylines) to deliver Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) aligned lessons.
Over the past 6 years, a team of 12 Research Experience for Teachers (RET) developed and piloted a series of lessons in which middle school students address the problem of premature infant mortality in the developing world. Students look at why the infant mortality rates are much lower in developed countries, even if the premature birth rate is similar, such as between the US and sub-Saharan Africa. They discover that access to infant incubators might help address this problem in the developing world but access to electricity is a limiting factor. Students then set out to design an infant incubator using chemical reactions to provide the heat. They learn about chemical reactions, insulating and conducting materials, and phase-change materials to regulate the heat in an organic way as they address problems that arise while designing their incubator. This series of lessons cover many of the middle school physical science standards related to chemical reactions (MS-PS-1, MS-PS-2, MS-PS-4, MS-PS-5, and MS-PS-6) as well as many of the engineering standards (MS-ETS-1, MS-ETS-2, MS-ETS-3, MS-ETS-4, and MS-ETS-5) in the NGSS.
Participants will experience some representative lessons as well as experience how storylining can be effectively used to motivate learning. This allows students to develop their knowledge to design and construct their incubator to the problem of premature infant mortality. Links to the complete set of lessons containing the source documents to replicate this lesson in your classroom will be provided.
Muskin, J., & Perez, J. (2022, August), Storylining a middle school engineering module that addresses the NGSS science standards (Resource Exchange) Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--40933
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