High School Engineering Activities
- Challenge your students with an engineering project.Peter the Great Bridge, supports of bridge, stair. image by katykin from Fotolia.com
Successful engineering requires problem-solving skills and attention to details. By engaging high school students in engineering-related projects, educators can allow their pupils to hone these skills. Engineering programs offer students the opportunity to be creative and think critically about the task at hand, as well as about the potential solutions to the posed problem reports Purdue University. Through the use of engineering projects, educators can both provide enrichment and excite their students. - Challenge your budding engineers to create a bridge using nothing but toothpicks. Provide each student with a box of standard toothpicks and a bottle of school glue. Instruct the student to use only these two tools to build a bridge no shorter than 6 inches. Once students have devised and built their bridges, move two desks 6 inches apart and set one of the bridges so it spans the created divide. Add weights or coins to the bridge. Continue to add weight until the bridge collapses. Reward the student whose bridge can hold the most weight.
- Ask your engineering students to solve the problem of overcrowded hallways by creating a school building design. Instruct your students to consider the problems that exist in their school building, paying particular attention to any commonly congested corridors or dead ends within the school. Provide each student with graph paper, and ask him to draft a more effective design that is free from these flaws. Allow each student to present his design to the class, explaining how his design improves upon the current plan, and how it would remedy some of the problems that currently exist within the school.
- Engage your engineering students in an exploration of water purification technology. Although the U.S. generally has adequately clean water, this is not the case in many developing countries. Provide your students access to the Internet, and ask them to research ways in which water is purified in underdeveloped regions. After students have gathered some cursory information on the topic, create a list of water purification methods, asking students to volunteer methods that they uncovered in their research. Divide students into groups, assigning each group one of the listed techniques. Instruct each group to research their assigned techniques and create a presentation that outlines the strengths and weaknesses of their technique and explains in broad strokes how the technique works. Allow each group to present their planned presentation to the class. At the conclusion of all presentations, have students vote on which technique they feel is the most sustainable and economically feasible solution to the problem of water purification.
