Students explore balanced forces and the role of a fulcrum to design a lift that can raise a person onto a raised platform.
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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. Students construct simple levers and explore the force required to balance the effort and load.
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. First, students examine images of various three-dimensional engineered objects and discuss the structure and function of the geometric shapes used in the design and how they might contribute to either supporting weight or stabilizing the object against motion. They then iteratively design and build a structure that can support the weight of a small book as high above the desk/table as possible.
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 an elevated platform and a person using a wheelchair. Student inferences help to develop a storyline, which leads to an authentic engineering design challenge: Design and build a device using a simple lever to lift the person using the wheelchair onto the elevated platform. 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 hydraulic-actuated lift 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. They compare three hydraulic lift 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.