Understanding Your Audience Needs
As you watch the skill video below, think about these questions:
- How does Jean and her staff “set the children up for success?”
- Why is it important to try out the activity and materials before hand?
- How might selecting appropriate materials impact youth learning?
Now that you’ve watched the video, reflect on what you saw and post your responses.
- Why do you think it’s important to select appropriate materials when doing STEM?
- What examples of types of materials did you see were especially successful with youth? How could you tell?
Explore Engineering Practices
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Real-World Application Of Skills
Providing real-world application of the skills of an engineer is an important strategy when developing a STEM identity in youth. Watch and listen for the challenges youth are given to think deeper and try to solve problems using redesign.
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Exploring Materials
Youth need to explore the properties of materials before they can create a contraption to float up and out of the wind tunnel.
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Iteration with Balloon-Powered Vehicle
Engineers test their designs to see how well they work. Then they use their observations and data to test their design, then test it again. The educator in this video explains how to test balloon-powered cars and encourages youth to improve their designs.