Watch 3-year-olds at play and you鈥檒l see them building. On the beach, it鈥檚 a sandcastle encircled by a moat. In the classroom, it鈥檚 a towering edifice constructed of cardboard or blocks.
鈥淭hey鈥檙e natural engineers with an inclination to design the world around them,鈥� said Christine M. Cunningham, founding director of Engineering is Elementary and vice president of the Museum of Science in Boston.
Yet as natural as it comes to the youngest school goers, engineering hasn鈥檛 been incorporated into the preschool and kindergarten curricula the way it has in the upper grades. The 鈥渆鈥� in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) has been largely missing for the youngest learners, at least in any significant way.
鈥淭here is some pre-engineering work being done in the early grades, a lot of building is going on, but not all 糖心动漫vlog are intentional in the way that they discuss those activities with students,鈥� said Catherine McCulloch, project director at the nonprofit , who has surveyed the Boston-area landscape for .
New engineering curricula developed by the Museum of Science in Boston aims to change that. The museum has developed and tested lesson plans for preschoolers () and kindergartners (). The preschool curriculum includes four challenges (such as building the noisiest noisemaker) that give students practice with a three-step design process: explore, create, improve. The kindergarten curriculum includes more complex challenges (such as building a trash collector) that guide students through a five-step design process: ask, imagine, plan, create, improve.
According to Cunningham, the activities go beyond advancing children鈥檚 natural inclination to problem-solve and build. They also develop students鈥� understanding of the human-made world around them early on, before they鈥檙e exposed to stereotypes about who can and cannot do STEM.
鈥淭he curriculum opens them up to a different way of thinking before we鈥檝e told them 鈥楨ngineering is hard鈥� or 鈥榊ou can鈥檛 do it because you need to think in a certain way鈥� or 鈥榊ou have to be super smart,鈥欌�� Cunningham told Education Week. 鈥淚nstead, we鈥檙e trying to build on the idea that 鈥楾his is something you can do. You鈥檝e already solved problems and designed solutions.鈥� It鈥檚 harder for someone later to convince them that they can鈥檛 do it.鈥�
Little Ones, Start Your Engineering
With a little prodding kids can learn to ask questions about the way things around them work: How does that door knob work? How about that pencil sharpener? The next step is to consider what is important about these things: Is it their color? Is it the materials they鈥檙e made of?
This is the line of questioning preschoolers follow when tackling the curriculum鈥檚 engineering challenges. For example, to make the noisiest noisemaker possible, students fill a case with items like pom poms, metal washers, or erasers and shake it to see what happens.
Cunningham said some kids don鈥檛 consider the material so much when they first begin creating their noisemaker. They might stuff a bunch of soft poms poms into the case simply because they like the colors. Others might stuff the case so that even the metal washers don鈥檛 move enough to produce much sound. 鈥淭hey start asking, 鈥榃hy isn鈥檛 it making any noise?鈥欌�� says Cunningham. 鈥淏ut then they look at what other kids are doing and that helps them to realize if they remove some of the stuff it will move. Some of them will realize if the stuff is harder it will make some noise. But not every kid is there. Some just like these colorful, soft pom poms.鈥�
It鈥檚 OK. if the kids aren鈥檛 there yet, said Jess Jarvis, a preschool teacher at Frances Jacobson Early Childhood Center at Temple Israel, in Boston. She was one of the teachers who piloted the curriculum. 鈥淎 lot of preschools can be very product oriented, where kids want to do something, finish it, and take it home,鈥� Jarvis said in an interview. 鈥淭he engineering challenges help them see the process doesn鈥檛 have to end there. They could put a 鈥榮ave鈥� sign on it, think about it, and go back and revise or improve it some more. It鈥檚 such a good lesson for them to take away and there hasn鈥檛 really been anything that allows them to do that. They can鈥檛 really do that in the block area [at school] because they have to clean up.鈥�
Hands-On for All Learners
Dana Romanczyk, a kindergarten inclusion teacher at Richard J. Murphy School in Boston who piloted the new curriculum, said for her kids who struggle academically, the challenges opened up their world and their imagination. 鈥淭hey can鈥檛 always experience success throughout the school day because they鈥檙e thinking 鈥業 don鈥檛 know how to count鈥� or 鈥業鈥檓 still learning to read,鈥欌�� she told Education Week. 鈥淏ut with the challenges, they know they can come up with ideas and tell you about them. It鈥檚 nice to see kids shine who don鈥檛 always get the chance to shine throughout the school day.鈥�
One of her students who is learning English and doesn鈥檛 talk much figured out how to make a super well-functioning trash collector. It was all about the shape. He taped up the sides of a piece of construction paper to make it look more like a shovel and, sure enough, his apparatus, attached to a Popsicle stick, could scoop up more pom poms than the other kids鈥� creations which generally left the construction paper flat. 鈥淭he other kids were so excited,鈥� Romanczyk says. 鈥淭hey were like, 鈥楬e made a shovel!鈥� And the student began telling them how they could make the shovel, too.鈥�
Later in that same challenge, students figured out what type of material (paper, cheese cloth, or plastic) the trash collector should be made of to pick litter from a pond where Danny the Duck lives. They tested the materials in water to see how they hold up. Romanczyk said her students remained interested throughout because the activity was hands-on, putting all students on equal footing.
Romanczyk was also pleased that her students could apply what they learned in building the trash collector to other situations. 鈥淭hey started thinking about how they can clean up our playground,鈥� she said. 鈥淭he learning transferred over to other parts of the school day and their life. They began to realize that they can make a difference in this world. It was really cool.鈥� Romanczyk talks more about her students鈥� experience with the curriculum in the video below.
At first, Jarvis and Romanczyk had worried they wouldn鈥檛 be up to the challenge of teaching engineering. But they say the curriculum spelled it all out for them. The downside? The curriculum isn鈥檛 free. For the pre-K curriculum and a design poster, the price is $98. For a kit with all the materials needed to complete the challenges, there is a $498 cost. More information on the program is . The Museum of Science is working with school districts across the country to secure funding from corporate donors to help whittle down the price tag. Cunningham says there is state and federal funding available for this type of curriculum as well.
Here are sources of free engineering lesson plans for Pre-K through 12th grades:
- Free K-12 engineering curriculum from the University of Colorado Boulder can be found on the site.
- Pre-K-12 includes a that tasks kids as young as preschool with building a house that the 鈥渂ig, bad wolf鈥� cannot blow down. The site was created by the American Society for Engineering Education.
- offers a variety of resources to help teachers who want to incorporate engineering into their curriculum. The site is a collaboration of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, IBM, and the New York Hall of Science.
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