BY Maggie Brown
Eastham Elementary School
Project Description
“The goal of this project is to get children to unleash their creative and innovative natures. Children will be designing, engineering and creating using literature as a basis for finding and solving problems. For example a latch for the 3 Bears door or a trap to catch the Gingerbread Person. Children will create mazes and goals for a caterpillar or mouse robot that they code themselves.
During this process the engineering design process will be a focus as well as collaboration, designing with physical properties of materials in mind and the ability to explain their thinking.”
How will the project be evaluated (e.g. how will you gauge its success)
“I will be working with children in grades PreK-3 using literature and 4 and 5 with real life situations that need multiple solutions.
The evaluation process for the PreK-2 will be the project solutions and their explanation of their thinking. The 3-5 children will be given criteria and constraints and their ability to follow guidelines and the design/engineering process along with collaboration with others will be evaluated.
This includes both engineered projects and coding.”
Benefit to the students and the school
“The benefits to the school will show the school community the ability of the children to come up with multiple solutions to familiar or realistic problems. For example, the 5th graders will research, design and create a composting system for the school.
I believe by including the entire school community in the children’s learning they will see that we are helping the children become problem solvers who are able to generate multiple solutions to basic problems.”
Timeline of Project (when will you do the project, if applicable)
The project will start immediately and continue throughout the school year. Projects will be documented through pictures, displays and on STEM nights.