Teaching Fifth Graders Engineering

Jamie noticed a NYT story saying "To compete in a global economy, some school districts are offering engineering lessons to students in kindergarten. " The story is about 5th graders working on a new experimental curriculum that is well beyond the egg drop of old.

Comments

Re:He Huffed and he Puffed....

[jsnipy]

5th graders, not 5 year olds

Re:Parents are the Biggest Factor

[decipher_saint]

I heartily agree.

From my own history I see a direct result of this kind of early brain-building.

My family purchased a computer (Commodore 64) when I was about 7, my mom sat down and showed me how to write basic code just by going through the examples in the book that came with it. At first it was just an endless print loop with my name in it, but soon it became little "20 questions" type games and then more and more.

I have no doubt the reason I am a programmer today is because of the education and support from my family at an early age and also the encouragement to excel and keep exploring.

I also learnt quite a bit about basic electronics from those old Radio Shack kits.

Summary is confusing... had to read TFA

[mark-t]

(Damnit, what is slashdot coming to?)

Anyways.... fifth graders are not in kindergarten (or at least, they damn well shouldn't be!)

At least the article was a lot less confusing by saying they are teaching it to levels from kindergarten through grade 5.

LEGO League

[ezratrumpet]

A particularly effective LEGO League coach, when handed a robot by erstwhile middle schoolers, proceeded to pull the robot horizonally. If it came apart, he handed the 'bot back to the team with two words: "Horizontal stresses."

If it held together, he nodded, then pulled the robot up and down. If it came apart, he handed the 'bot back to the team with two words: "Vertical stresses."

If the robot could handle stress, he asked to see what it could do on the scoring table.

He also made sure that there were cookies, sometimes, and drinks.

Good times, those.

Re:Do it Mythbuster Style!

[vlm]

also encourages them to be critical of pre-conceived ideas.

That is not going to fly in the bible belt.

Locally they call it the "Science Technology Engineering Math curriculum", often referred to locally as "The jobs that have gone to India curriculum" or the "future downsized/unemployed of America curriculum".

It seems like a cargo cult, perhaps if we just tried harder to indoctrinate our youth into textile work or manufacturing, then those jobs would have magically stayed onshore ... because, uh ... because we wished really hard.