Design It!
Engineering in Afterschool Programs
- Order the curriculum
- Download Designing Partnerships Between Science Centers and After-School Programs: Lessons from Design It! Engineering in After School Programs
- See our listing in the SEDL Consumers' Guide to Afterschool Science Resources
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The Center for Science Education (CSE), in collaboration with the National Institute on Out-of School Time (NIOST), worked with 6 science centers and museums and more than 30 after school programs nationwide to implement special programming in design engineering for elementary school-aged children (ages 7-12). These extended design engineering activities challenge children to build and refine working models of small machines and toys over a period of 3-6 weeks. While engaging in the activities, children gain experience in physical science, problem solving, experimentation, and collaboration as well as practical familiarity with a wide range of safe, inexpensive, and commonly available construction materials.
The primary goals of the project were to:
- foster collaborative relationships between science centers
and community-based after school child care programs,
- develop extended design technology projects appropriate
for children ages 7-12,
- support the implementation of these extended design projects in after school programs and other informal educational settings.
The Children's Museum, Boston, the Science Museum of Minnesota, the St. Louis Science Center, Baltimore Museum of Industry, Pittsburgh Children's Museum, and the Science Center of Eastern Connecticut each selected five community organizations that run after school programs to participate in the program. At each science center, experienced science center staff ran monthly training workshops for the after school program leaders. These workshops introduced new design projects and addressed ongoing issues of project management and educational approach. Program leaders then implemented the projects at least once a week with the children at their home sites. Science center staff and local representatives of NIOST made regular visits to the after school sites to support implementation of the program.
Of the six science centers or museums that piloted Design
It! with their local community agencies, five will
continue working with the curriculum for at least another
year through their own funding sources. Besides just teaching
the curriculum to children in the community agencies, the
funding will include training the program leaders at these
sites. Some of the centers will also be using Design
It! outside of the project scope. For instance, the
Baltimore Museum of Industry has used it in a summer program.
Additionally, CSE continues to train program administrators, most recently at an institute that attracted people from across the country to learn about the Design It! curriculum and approach.
Activities developed during the program include:
- Balls and Tracks [download a sample]
- Drinking Straw Structures
- Tops
- Rubber Band Powered Cars
- Trebuchets
- Blinking Lights
- Gliders
- Yo-Yos
- Balloon Powered Cars
- Paper Bridges
- Pinball: Designing a Game
- Sand and Water Clocks
- Wiring a Houses
- Cranes
- String Telephones
- Rockets
- Cardboard Constructions
Feedback
from the centers' piloting of these activities was incorporated
into revisions of the activity guides, which are now published
by Kelvin.
EDC and NIOST provided technical assistance to science
centers and community agencies to develop effective collaborative
relationships. NIOST has developed a collaboration manual
based on that experience.
If you'd like to review an activity from one of our projects, we've made available the first activity of Balls and Tracks.
Click here to download a PDF version of Balls and Tracks: Activity 1 (you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader).
Ordering Information for Design It! Project Guides
280 Adams Blvd.
Farmingdale, NY 11735
T: 800-535-8469
F: 800-756-1025
Email: kelvin@kelvin.com
http://www.kelvin.com
Designing Partnerships Between Science Centers and After-School Programs: Lessons from Design It! Engineering in After School Programs.
Prepared for Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC), by the National Institute on Out-of-School Time (NIOST) in partnership with: Baltimore Museum of Industry, the Children's Museum of Boston, Science Center of Eastern Connecticut, Science Museum of Minnesota, Pittsburgh Children's Museum, and St. Louis Science Center. Funded, in part, by the National Science Foundation.
The project Design It! Engineering in After School Programs offers a model of partnering in which science centers extend their traditional roles of providing educational experiences directly to children. In this model, the science centers train after-school program leaders to become the deliverers of science and design-engineering activities.
Drawing from the Design It! experience, this publication includes
- information on identifying partners,
- building a relationship with them,
- providing training, and
- funding and evaluating the partnerships.
For additional information about the Design It! project or to learn how the developers can help you implement this program in your science center or community program, please contact Bernie Zubrowski at bzubrowski@edc.org.
OF INTEREST:Explore It!, an out-of-school school curriculum also developed by EDC, extends the model developed during Design It! to new groups with new science-based activities.
Children can get involved in engineering activities similar to those in the Design It! curriculum by visiting the ASEE EngineeringK12 Center Web site at http://www.engineeringk12.org
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 9814765. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).
