Posts by Brenda Kovich

Teaching stages of the engineering design process to kids? Don’t just jump into STEM activities. Instead, provide a clear learning progression. First, introduce each step clearly. Second, give them opportunities…

Conducting a fair test in engineering design? This phase of the process is often overlooked. But kids in third, fourth, and fifth grades should do it! After identifying failure points,…

Developing a prototype and testing it is the fun part of the engineering design process. Kids in third, fourth, and fifth grades design and build a model. Then they try…

Generating and choosing solutions make up the second part the engineering design process. Kids in third, fourth, and fifth grade research and brainstorm. Then they consider criteria and constraints to…

Defining a problem is the first step in the engineering design process. For kids in third, fourth, and fifth grades, this should include criteria and constraints. Let’s take a look…