I love the student testimonials. Your video alluded to the fact that students who sometimes exhibit behavior problems in the classroom are engaged in the engineering projects. We have found the same to be true in our project. Just curious, is there a way you have found to quantify student engagement and reduction in off task behavior?

Engineering is Elementary® (EiE) is an ongoing project of the National Center for Technological Literacy® at the Museum of Science, Boston. EiE serves children and educators in grades K–8 with research-based, teacher-tested curriculum materials for schools and out-of-school time programs. If you have questions or comments about the project or about our video, I would be happy to answer them.

Your video really moved me. “I didn’t know that Charley was a genius.” Wow! I’m very interested to learn the results of your efficacy trial.

The video makes a powerful statement about the way EiE encourages collaborate learning. The featured educator seems to be getting a lot out of the curriculum. What techniques do you use to teach other educators to use the program this well?

Hi Christine and Vanessa (small world!) I just wanted to post an appreciation for this beautiful video and the hard work you do to make engineering accessible to ALL students. Very inspiring!

Nice video. Kids are sooo positive. Just curious, how do you assess student learning and skill development?

Good job on the video. Did good job of showing affective impact of hands-on engineering curriculum when kids are left to work and collaborate together on solutions and/or engineering problems. What I didn’t get from the video is how you do this. Showing part of the curriculum or how teachers are guided to enhance the engagement part of the lesson you developed would be good. Also something about the content and how you would assess student understanding. This could be an example of how you promote science/engineering discourse by students through your program. I am a little familiar with EIE and know you do this, somewhat. I also work with teachers in the classroom and in the ‘out of school time’ venue with engineering curriculum and get similar results with engagement. We are also working on ways of measuring this and hope to make it quantifiable. We also find our emphasis with science/engineering talk important for English Language Development but also use specific strategies along with the curriculum. What have you embedded into EIE that specifically supports ELL students acquisition of English. What are the supports provided for teachers to learn how to deliver the curriculum?

Thank you.

Interesting video. Seems like a great opportunity for all those kids!

I am curious about the content of the actual projects though!
Those were solar ovens? What did they put in them?
Did they run into trouble? How did they resolve them if they did?

This is fantastic. I love the testimonies of the students. Utilizing the design process to guide their learning is a great step towards developing metacognition! “All these steps we did, helped me like think… maybe I could become an engineer.” Awesome. Do you provide opportunities for the student’s to visit with practicing engineers that represent diversity in the field?

Excellent video. I really like how the students’ voices created the message. Your use of an engineering design process at such an early age is the real genius in this program.

What do you use as your source for project ideas?

Thank you for putting young people front and center in the classroom and in the video. Could you please share what one of your biggest challenges might be once your curriculum is in the classrooms and how you deal with it?

Thank you for sharing this video. The children’s self efficacy and attitude about engineering as something that was within their realm of choices was very evident. The design cycle and the cognitive demands on the students was structured in a way to support all students engage. How have you supported students with the “failure” of design and building their capacity to see failure as part of the design process?

Thanks for sharing your terrific project! The video captures the students’ experience very nicely. Three things stand out for me: the importance of building student identify as science thinkers/learners, the way students engage each other and appreciate each other’s contributions, and the sense of efficacy the students feel as a result of participation. How wonderful! I’m curious how these outcomes transfer into other classrooms or into future science learning.

I was extremely excited about what I saw in your video. I loved how the students were engaged in the process. I went to the EiE website to see what else I could find out about your program. I downloaded a sample lesson on plants and noticed the literacy connection. I’m wondering if all of your EiE programs incorporate literacy. I teach kindergarten and literacy is the source of all of my curriculum.

Excellent all the way through. I think this is the way of the future for our country and STEM. The video shows the honesty and passion the kids have on the hands on method. As an Engineer who has been in the class room elementary and beyond, you can’t stop but to love the kids! Great work Ms. Cunningham we need to duplicate you and your efforts across America! My website: math-infusion.com

I found this video and the project to be very exciting. I especially liked seeing how the engineering project provided opportunities for the children to find specific ways to appreciate each other as well as to learn about themselves. I hope you have a variety of research and evaluation efforts that are connected with the project in order to look at immediate as well as long-term impacts—both expected and unexpected.