So, you’ve been window shopping for a good Level Up Village course to do next year with your elementary school children, and you’ve settled on the first of the Global Storybook Engineers series. Great choice! But it seems daunting, just to get your youngins to sit still for a story, let alone reflect meaningfully on something as robustly opaque, inscrutable, and seemingly kid-unfriendly as the Engineering Design Cycle. Well, read on, intrepid educator, as we break down how to prepare for LUV’s Global Connections Exchange: Global Storybook Engineers 1 course, and tips to vivify the experience for your adorable micro-pupils!
Understanding the Engineering Design Cycle
While its title forebodes a complicated lesson on arcane principles and weighty themes, the Engineering Design Cycle, at its core, simply formalizes what we humans (and, incidentally, educators) do best: trial and error. The steps are quite simple and can often fit neatly on a graphic, but here they are at its core, and how they might be summarized or made relevant to, let’s say, a seven-year-old.
Identify the Problem: Clearly define the problem or need, including all the necessary specifications and constraints. Simply put, “What’s wrong?” Try asking that question to a screaming, crying kid….you’ll get an earful!
Research: Gather information about the problem and existing solutions. This is the amber bulb on the traffic light, telling kids, “Look before you leap.” Ask your who/what/where/why interrogatives and see if your kids know anyone who’s ever encountered this problem before, and how they solved it.
Specify Requirements: Based on the research, define clear and detailed criteria for what the solution must accomplish. This includes defining the goals and limitations of the project. We’ve all tactfully put these bumpers up when a kid imaginatively suggests, “Well, maybe we can fly there,” or “My daddy can build a robot that can do it,” and other such adorable nonsense.
Brainstorm and Conceptualize: Generate a wide range of creative ideas and possible solutions. Brainstorming is often done in teams to leverage diverse perspectives, but you might still get some wacky ideas that should be greeted with enthusiasm, but then politely sequestered based on the limitations of your classroom, resources…physics….reality….you know….Kids, am I right?
Develop Solutions: Select promising ideas and develop them into more detailed plans. Tease out some of the realistic ideas suggested by your little helpers, and tease out the next steps with an imaginative, “So, what would you do next?”
Choose the Best Solution: Evaluate potential solutions against the specified requirements and constraints. With little kids, you may need to exercise a little benevolent dictatorship and be congratulatory of everyone who participated, but there’s gotta be a clear winner.
Prototype: Build a working model of the chosen solution. Level Up Village has wonderfully sewn these activities into the fabric of the course, so each week, you and your students will be employing that vivacious elementary school energy on crafting something.
Test and Evaluate: Systematically test the prototype under different conditions to see if it meets the desired specifications. You can do this as you monitor your diminutive workers, asking them critical questions and “what ifs” about their product.
Iterate Based on Feedback: Use the results of testing to refine and improve the solution. A quick circle-up or pair and share to get honest reflections on the experience will draw some lively and insightful commentary, no doubt!
Implement the Solution: Once the solution is optimized, it is finalized and implemented. Remember to celebrate everyone’s solutions. Maybe a short show and tell of your students’ projects or a “science fair”-esque display of the products will properly commemorate everyone’s work!
Communicate Results: Document the project, its development, and final results. You can actually do this by taking pictures, if that’s allowed in your institution, and show a fun summary video of the experience to the class. The kids will love looking for themselves in the collage and sharing their experiences.
The Stories
The backbone to Global Storybook Engineers 1, and arguably one of the most enjoyable parts, comes to life in the cultural stories you’re going to share with your students. The tales of Strega Nona, Monkey (who I know from my Comparative Lit class as Hanuman, the Monkey King who appears in the Ramayana), and Zomo hail from different countries, but they all represent an important figure of folkloric literature: the trickster. The trickster archetype, by modern nomenclature a “disruptor,” serves various purposes across the pantheon of the world’s mythology, but often ends up diverting and entertaining the reader or listener with clever and jaunty, mischievous or unconventional solutions to the plot’s problems. To the delight of children across the globe, the trickster can sometimes cause trouble in the story’s narrative but usually creates beneficial outcomes for the characters through its denouement.
But why would we want to focus on roguish truants and charlatans for an elementary course on engineering?
Because! Disruptors and unconventional problem-solving lie at the heart of creative approaches to the engineering design cycle. Tricksters, with their clever problem-solving skills, adaptability, and creative approaches to challenges, embody many of the qualities that are essential in engineering. Here’s how these characters can be used to elucidate for your munchkins the different aspects of the engineering design cycle:
Identifying Problems: Tricksters often begin their stories by identifying a lack or a need, just as engineers do. For instance, Strega Nona might be presented by a wart she needs to help remove, or Monkey needs to get mangoes and escape the Crocodile. This can be related to how engineers identify a need for a new tool or solution.
Research and Information Gathering: Tricksters frequently use their knowledge of their environment and the behaviors of other characters to their advantage. Through some provocative questions during the stories, you can highlight to your kids how gathering information is crucial before attempting to solve a problem. Not unlike how an engineer researches existing solutions and technologies!
Developing Solutions and Brainstorming: Tricksters excel at thinking outside the box—coming up with unconventional solutions that others wouldn’t consider. This creativity is at the heart of brainstorming in the engineering design cycle, where multiple potential solutions are considered, and what makes the story enjoyable! I mean, come on, who doesn’t love an endless pasta-cauldron, or the wacky methods employed by Zomo to complete his quests?
Prototyping and Testing: Many trickster tales involve the character creating a plan or device and then testing it. Sometimes, especially in the stories you’re reading, it’s important to imagine how the roguish central figure has gotten good at their tricks—elicit from your students a fun prologue where they first try out a trick and it fails to underscore this process. This mirrors the prototype development phase where engineers build a model of their solution to see if it works.
Evaluating and Iterating: Trickster stories often do not end with the first attempt. Instead, the trickster must refine their approach based on feedback or failure, much like how engineers refine their designs after testing and evaluating their effectiveness. Zomo’s ironic ending, where the Sky God suggests he now avoid his victims for fear of retribution, is a good example. You can ask your students whether they thought Zomo’s solutions were the best for everyone involved, and you’re likely to get some of your kids to provide more imaginative (and hopefully more ethical!) solutions.
Implementing Solutions: When tricksters finally succeed, it’s usually because they’ve crafted a well-thought-out plan that achieves their goals. This teaches children about the final stages of the engineering design cycle, where a successful prototype is finalized and implemented. Remember that sometimes the “success” of the trickster figure can come in the form of a peaceful solution for everyone, a lesson, the “friends we made along the way,” or just the fact that no one got hurt in the process!
Learning from Failure: Trickster tales often involve failures and unexpected outcomes. These stories can teach children that failure is a natural part of solving a problem and that perseverance is key, much like in engineering. It’s important to stress that the creative process is not a straight road, and that failure can often lead to its myriad solutions. Kids are precious and vulnerable at the age you’re teaching, so you already know to soften the blow of failure, and always highlight the silver lining.
All right, so you’ve built (or attempted to build!) a tower, a boat, a maze, all while following the zany adventures of folklore’s most dastardly monkey, rabbit, and grandma-witch; but that’s not all–-you’ve also given a thorough, experiential masterclass on the engineering design cycle by reveling in its stories and living it out loud in your classroom! And all the while, you’re giving your kids a great source of inspiration and material for their communion with kids abroad! When you’ve respectfully and enthusiastically modeled the cycle in your classroom, there’s no doubt that the kids will be excited to share and revel in the experience with their global video pen pals, and have lots of great stories to tell. You must be quite the trickster, yourself!
