Engineering Practice: Envision Multiple Solutions

Engineers brainstorm, construct, and assess multiple solutions to a problem. They understand that a given problem can be solved in a number of ways and use criteria and constraints to select the optimal solution.

“It’s Like Science, But With Other People!”

Students discuss how the Engineering Notebook and the Engineering Design Process helped them think of multiple design options for their rescue shuttle. Watch & Reflect:

Reflection Questions

Students are able to refer to their recorded ideas later in the design process. Writing and drawing in a notebook also helps them practice communicating their ideas in multiple modalities.

  1. Ask students questions that help them see beyond their current plan:
    a.  “Did everyone in your group have the same idea?”
    b.  “Have you thought of any other ways you could ____?”
    c.  “We also have [material] available. Could that be useful in your design?”
  2. When improving, remind students to use evidence from the Ask and Test phases to think about other ways they could solve the problem.
  3. Encourage students to look at the work of their peers around the room. Does anything they see spark an idea of their own?

Related Practices: Innovate to Design Solutions, Communicate Effectively
Featured Unit: Engineering Rescue Shuttles

“Do You Think It’s the Sponge?”

Students share their findings from testing their water filters and discuss how they used different materials to achieve different results. Watch & Reflect:

Reflection Questions

The teacher builds on a student’s thinking that the sponge is the problem and asks other students to share their findings about the sponge. This allows students to provide evidence and ideas from other groups’ designs that do and do not support Julia’s idea about the sponge.

The teacher could ask students to return to imagining and think about other materials they might use based on their testing data.

Related Practices: Communicate Effectively, Persist Through and Learn From Failure
Featured Unit: Designing Model Membranes