SD62 Maker Day

Grade: 8
Subject: Careers (Maker Day)
Big Idea (What will your students understand):
Achieving our learning goals requires effort and perseverance
Driving Questions (What is the big idea that your students will understand at the end):
How can we as practicing engineers design a floating structure, out of refuse, that allows us to successfully support a heavy cargo load?
Curricular Competencies (What will your students be able to do?):
●Demonstrate respect, collaboration, and inclusivity in working with others to solve problems
●Set and achieve realistic learning goals with perseverance and resilience
●Apply decision-making strategies to a life, work, or community problem and adjust the strategies to adapt to new situations / Content Standards (What will your students know):
●goal-setting strategies
●self-assessment for career research
●reflection
●project management
Core Competencies (What can your students say about these?):
●Communication
●Creative Thinking / First Peoples Principles of Learning (Which principles are woven into this unit):
Learning takes patience and time
Lesson Sequence/ Student Learning Intentions (What is the sequence of skills and concepts that your students are going to be learning about in this unit?):
●Go over driving question with students.
●Additional classroom discussion items: the structure should float, be watertight, can fit inside a small kitchen sink or 5 gal bucket.
●Break students into working groups of 4
●Groups create team work norms, roles, and responsibilities (10 min)
●Present groups with supplies list:
  1. 10 drinking straws
  2. 1 meter of tape
  3. Aluminum foil (approx. size: 30cm X 60cm)
  4. 2 sheets of paper (8.5 X 11)
  5. 5 popsicle sticks
  6. 1 cardboard rectangle (approx. size 7 X 15cm)
●As a group, create a blueprint / draft / sketch of their design (15min)
●Each group of four gets supplies once their draft is completed and shown to teacher.
●Students have 50 mins to creatively design.
●After 50 mins all designing will conclude and groups will prepare for testing (clean up)
Testing Conditions in classroom:
  1. Water source: 5 gal bucket or tote
  2. Under load (slowly add weight – from teacher kit, make sure all teachers add the same weight in the same order) test weight integrity. In order to keep tests consistent use same weight and test person for consistency. Have a set time where you add a set amount of weight. The record times. Ex. every 10 seconds, start with heavier weights.
  3. The structure that can support the most weight while floating will be deemed the winner based on structural integrity.
  4. Take note of winningest structure weight for comparison amongst other classes.
Assessment and Reflection:
Please see attached See, Think, Wonder sheet and self-reflection assessment sheet.
Website links:
Instructables:
Taking Make Into the Classroom :

Guest presenters:
  1. Local engineers group (industry)
  2. Boat builders in community
  3. Post-secondary students UVic or Camosun engineering students

Formative Assessments
Co-constructing Criteria: An option prior to building
Descriptive Feedback: Ongoing by peers and teachers (visitors from post sec or industry)
Peer Assessment/ Feedback: Ongoing verbal by teacher and peers, example attached
Self-Assessment:
-See attached
Summative Assessments: None

April 2017, Tanya Larkin & Dawn Anderson