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In Autumn Dillaman ’ s fifth-grade class at Falk Laboratory School , students lean over wooden boards , marked in the center with three-by-three-inch boxes made of blue masking tape , and fine-tune their designs . Wooden blocks go sliding across the boards , some clanking off onto the floor while others come to rest near the blue square . On the projector screen on one side of the classroom , a timer ticks down from 15 minutes .
The six groups in the class are all facing the same challenge : build a “ kicking machine ” capable not only of moving a wooden block across the wooden board and into that center square but doing so gradually . ( Projected onto the screen is an image of a crash-test dummy with the caption “ Gradual — meaning you don ’ t want your block to get whiplash !”)
Some groups are tackling the challenge with ramps , while others have built devices that look more like slingshots . Some groups use materials like paper , bubble wrap , tin foil , and fabric to slow their block enough to land it gently in the blue square .
With just a few minutes left , groups put the finishing touches on their kicking machines . Dillaman checks in with them , asking questions and offering words of advice .
“ Make sure you ’ re doing it consistently ,” she counsels one group .
“ Was your board set up correctly ?” she asks another .
Today ’ s task is the latest in a series of design challenges Dillaman has given students this term . First , they built machines capable of flinging the block clear across their boards , learning about friction and how to reduce it . Next ,
they reintroduced friction in order to land the block in a six-inch “ end zone ” at the far end of the board .
Another in the series of friction-based challenges focused on the real-world problem of traffic on an icy road . Students had to modify a wax paper – covered ramp to enable a toy car to move to the top . The ramp started out at an angle of 12 degrees and got steeper as the students discovered new insights .
These challenges are all part of a much bigger project , one initiated in 2019 by Tevis Jacobs , associate professor in the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering , who received a National Science Foundation ( NSF ) grant to prototype a unit that would help to teach engineering concepts to elementary school students . Since first receiving the grant , Jacobs has partnered with Dillaman and Pitt School of Education Associate Professor of Practice Katrina Bartow Jacobs , Falk School ’ s research coordinator , to implement the project .
Delayed and complicated by the pandemic , it ’ s a project with a range of important goals , from lowering the barriers that keep students from pursuing engineering careers to establishing a new model for how research is conducted at Falk School .
The E in STEM
Jacobs was moved to apply for the NSF grant by research showing that achievement gaps between boys and girls ( and between white students and students of color ) begin as early as middle school .
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