Students explore the densities and viscosities of fluids as they create a colorful 'rainbow' using household liquids. While letting the fluids in the rainbow settle, students conduct 'The Great Viscosity Race,' another short experiment that illustrates the difference between viscosity and density. Later, students record the density rainbow with sketches and/or photography.

This design challenge moves your students from passive to active learners through a cross-curricular, hands-on team challenge in direct correlation to real-world issues of water conservation. By creating prototype desalination plants and companies, students in grades 6-8 will understand how substances are separated, the need for freshwater conservation, and ultimately how a desalination plant works.

SYNOPSIS: In this lesson, students explore different methods of desalination.

SCIENTIST NOTES: This lesson teaches students about potable water scarcity and then explores desalination as a possible solution in water-stressed areas. Desalination technologies are introduced, and energy and environmental costs of desalination are discussed. A video resource explores a novel desalination technology, the Solar Dome, being built in Saudi Arabia. Students are tasked with designing and building their own solar still, and opportunity is given for design optimization. This lesson is recommended for teaching.

POSITIVES:
-This lesson can be multidisciplinary and can be completed in engineering, computer science, digital art, English or science classes.
-Students and teachers are given voice and multiple areas of choice in this lesson.
-Students become agents of change in their own communities, identifying problems and solutions.
-Students and teachers can make this conceptual, practical, or hands-on.
-This lesson can be spread out over several days and be considered a mini-unit.

ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITES:
-Students should be familiar with the basics of climate change.
-Students should be familiar with the basic scientific concepts of osmosis.
-Students should be familiar with basic engineering concepts like scaling and design.

DIFFERENTIATION:
-Students can work independently or in a group with adjusted requirements.
-Teachers can use subject and grade level vocabulary already being worked on or learned in class. Teachers can add vocabulary words in the glossary slide of the Teacher Slideshow.
-To further develop practical science or engineering skills, students can work together to create and implement a workable desalination solution at the school, home, or community level. Students can lead a workshop for family, an environmental club, or the community.
-Some students may wish to communicate their advocacy via social media. Make sure to follow all school rules and monitor students’ progress if you allow this in the classroom.

This course explores the reciprocal relationships among design, science, and technology by covering a wide range of topics including industrial design, architecture, visualization and perception, design computation, material ecology, and environmental design and sustainability. Students will examine how transformations in science and technology have influenced design thinking and vice versa, as well as develop methodologies for design research and collaborate on design solutions to interdisciplinary problems.

Students design and build model landfills using materials similar to those used by engineers for full-scale landfills. Their completed small-size landfills are "rained" on and subjected to other erosion processes. The goal is to create landfills that hold the most garbage, minimize the cost to build and keep trash and contaminated water inside the landfill to prevent it from causing environmental damage. Teams create designs within given budgets, test the landfills' performance, and graph and compare designs for capacity, cost and performance.

This activity was created by Molly Clare Wilson, it is a quick introductory design thinking exercise.

An ethnography expedition enables you to gain understanding, discover insights, and (re)frame design opportunities.

An experiment expedition allows you to test and refine solution(s)/intervention(s) and question underlying assumptions. There are typically many stages of prototyping before determining your ultimate intervention. Mark your current understanding of your stage of testing for this expedition (What are you testing?)

Students discover how engineers can use biomimicry to enhance their designs. They learn how careful observation of nature becoming a nature detective, so to speak can lead to new innovations and products. In this activity, students reverse engineer a flower to glean design ideas for new products.

Students use their creative skills to determine a way to safely mail raw (dry, uncooked) spaghetti using only the provided materials. To test the packing designs, the spaghetti is mailed through the postal system and evaluated after delivery.

Students practice the initial steps involved in an engineering design challenge. They begin by reviewing the steps of the engineering design loop and discussing the client need for the project. Next, they identify a relevant context, define the problem within their design teams, and examine the project's requirements and constraints. (Note: Conduct this activity in the context of a design project that students are working on, which could be a challenge determined by the teacher, brainstormed with the class, or the example project challenge provided [to design a prosthetic arm that can perform a mechanical function].)

Through Internet research, patent research, standards and codes research, user interviews (if possible) and other techniques (idea web, reverse engineering), students further develop the context for their design challenge. In subsequent activities, the design teams use this body of knowledge about the problem to generate product design ideas. (Note: Conduct this activity in the context of a design project that students are working on, which could be a challenge determined by the teacher, brainstormed with the class, or the example project challenge provided [to design a prosthetic arm that can perform a mechanical function]. This activity is Step 2 in a series of six that guide students through the engineering design loop.)

Brainstorming is a team creativity activity that helps generate a large number of potential solutions to a problem. In this activity, students participate in a group brainstorming activity to generate possible solutions to their engineering design challenge. Students learn brainstorming guidelines and practice within their teams to create a poster of ideas. The posters are used in a large group critiquing activity that ultimately helps student teams create a design project outline. (Note: Conduct this activity in the context of a design project that students are working on; this activity is Step 3 in a series of six that guide students through the engineering design loop.)

Engineering analysis distinguishes true engineering design from "tinkering." In this activity, students are guided through an example engineering analysis scenario for a scooter. Then they perform a similar analysis on the design solutions they brainstormed in the previous activity in this unit. At activity conclusion, students should be able to defend one most-promising possible solution to their design challenge. (Note: Conduct this activity in the context of a design project that students are working on; this activity is Step 4 in a series of six that guide students through the engineering design loop.)

Students learn about the manufacturing phase of the engineering design process. They start by building prototypes, which is a special type of model used to test new design ideas. Students gain experience using a variety of simple building materials, such as foam core board, balsa wood, cardstock and hot glue. They present their prototypes to the class for user testing and create prototype iterations based on feedback. (Note: Conduct this activity in the context of a design project that students are working on; this activity is Step 5 in a series of six that guide students through the engineering design loop.)

As students learn more about the manufacturing process, they use the final prototypes created in the previous activity to evaluate, design and manufacture final products. Teams work with more advanced materials and tools, such as plywood, Plexiglas, metals, epoxies, welding materials and machining tools. (Note: Conduct this activity in the context of a design project that students are working on; this activity is Step 6 in a series of six that guide students through the engineering design loop.)

This module provides broad guidelines surrounding how the design experiences of youth librarians and young people can be supported.

Getting Started

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(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

This is a highly adaptable outline for how design thinking could be introduced to your learners over a multi-day project. This plan works best if students are divided up into groups of 3-4 for all work except the introduction to each concept at the beginning of class. Learners should stay in the same group for the whole class.

Includes pre-work links, general instructions to guide planning for each day, design thinking student handouts, and multi-grade NGSS standards linked to design thinking.