TRAVELING ENGINEERING ACTIVITY KITS - ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT: DESIGNED BY COLLEGE STUDENTS FOR MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS

摘要

A 2005-06 Multidisciplinary Senior Design team created a series of classroom activities designed to teach middle school students about engineering topics related to energy and the environment. This traveling engineering activity kit (TEAK) project consists of five kits, each based on a different energy-related theme: Heat Transfer, Electrical Energy, Wind and Water, Solar Power, and Chemical Energy. Each kit contains an Academic Activity to teach a background concept, a Hands-On Activity to allow students to apply the concepts learned, and a Take-Home Activity that can be done independently at home. The design team also developed instruction manuals suitable for non-engineers, lesson plans, handouts, and post-activity quizzes to assess participants' learning. To date, the kits have been used by over 100 6th graders as well as dozens more students participating in on-and off-campus outreach programs. This paper describes how and why undergraduate engineering students were involved in designing the TEAK educational tool, including a detailed list of customer needs and design specifications that were defined during their design process. Discussions are also included on the basic TEAK structure, kit descriptions, and assessment results to date.