STEMteachersPHX: Engineering in the Middle School Classroom

Join Engineering Educators Matt Peterie and Andrew Taylor for a weeklong workshop aimed at integrating engineering in your middle school classroom.

Experience powerful storylines incorporating both engineering and science practices into the Middle School Physical and Life Sciences.  This workshop provides multiple instructional sequences that make current science and engineering research accessible to your students, illustrates how to use engineering design as a context for rich scientific inquiry, and provides opportunities to develop materials incorporating these topics into your current curriculum.  Storylines include removing pollutants from wetlands, growing food sources to support life during space travel, exploring forces and fluid dynamics by designing parachutes, protecting precious cargo during collisions, and many more.  As you experience the instructional sequences as a learner you will also develop an understanding of how designers effectively work and think and the strategies we use to keep the STEM content at the center of the rich learning experiences.

Workshop Schedule

Day 1 AM: 3 Dimensions of Science and Engineering Standards, Differentiating Novice vs. Informed Design Behaviors and supporting STEM learners through Design activities.

Day 1 PM: Creating storylines which support scientific inquiry and engineering design opportunities:

Making a proposal for vertical farming variables to be maintained in long term space travel

Day 2 AM: Physical Science- Structures and Stability: Strategies to support Design Thinking

Day 2 PM: Creativity and Brainstorming Strategies- Keeping science topics central to idea generation:

Protecting precious cargo through collisions

Day 3 AM: How do contaminants present in small concentrations cause big problems for top level consumers?

Day 3 PM: Guided Instructional Planning and Application: Bundles and Evidence Statements

Day  4 AM: Designing solutions to prevent the harmful effects of moon dust on astronauts and sensitive equipment

Day 4 PM: Peer Review of Instructional Sequence Design Template

Day 5 AM: Stress and Strain: Applying material properties and optimization to improve the shopping bag

Day 5 PM: Completion of Instructional Sequence Design Template, Participant Presentations

Jun 19, 9:00 AM MST – Jun 23, 3:00 PM MST

Location is TBD – Phx area