Students explore electrical energy transfer to design a layout of a house to meet several design criteria.
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NGSS Performance Expectations
Summary of Module Activities
Classroom Activity #1 - Science Investigation: Students explore a science phenomenon to develop ideas that they will use in the engineering design challenges. Using PhET™ Interactive Simulations, students investigate how changing the variables in a simple light bulb circuit (voltage of battery and resistance of light bulb) affect the flow of electrical current and light produced.
Classroom Activity #2 - Engineering Design: Students engage in the engineering design process of defining and delimiting a problem, designing solutions, and iteratively testing and modifying their designs to optimize a solution to the problem. Using PhET™ Interactive Simulations, students design a circuit with two light bulbs so that when one light fails (breaks or is removed) the other light remains illuminated.
MOXI Field Trip - Engineering Design Challenge: Students engage in an engineering design challenge facilitated by a MOXI staff member. The activity opens with students making observations and inferences from an image of children reading by the light of a kerosene lamp. Student inferences help to develop a storyline, which leads to an authentic engineering design challenge: Design a battery-powered lighting circuit that provides optimum lighting for a household lacking electricity using three light bulbs. Goals for success (criteria) and limitations (constraints) are identified collaboratively by the students to delimit the problem. Materials are presented to teams of students, who engage in the engineering design process to design, build, and test a model for a lighting circuit that satisfies the criteria.
Classroom Activity #3 - Reflection: Students reflect on their field trip designs and how the engineering design process helped them solve problems. Using PhET™ Interactive Simulations, they compare three field trip program circuit designs and discuss the tradeoffs between criteria and constraints. Finally, students reflect on how they used the engineering design process to define and solve a problem.