Like A Real Engineer!
Watch the activity overview video of a group of youth from a summer program on a field trip to learn more about how engineers work.
As you watch the video, think about these questions.
- How does the engineer use the engineering design process with youth?
- What problem solving skills are modeled here?
- What does the engineer say and do here to connect the youth to the real-world career of an engineer?
- If you were frontline staff in this video, what would you do differently to help youth see themselves as an engineer?
Now that you’ve watched the video, reflect on what you saw. How does this apply to your work?
- Brainstorm possible engineers in your community you could invite to participate at your program. What would you do and say to help the engineer align real-world application of what they do in their career to an activity in your program?
- How do the youth respond to the interactions with the engineer?
Explore Engineering Practices
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Try & Try Again
Watch as Gauri works with youth to design, build and test a cook stove. Take note of how she encourages students to re-test or re-design their stove idea.
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DIVEE
Lemond uses an acronym, DIVEE, and rhythm to make the engineering design process more accessible to youth.
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Affirming Youth During Retesting
Watch as staff encourage youth to investigate how they designed their package, what did or didn’t work with their design, and how they might adapt for re-testing. Staff support youth’s abilities and encourage youth to work with their team and develop their own solutions for re-testing their designs.