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Kinder Engineers:
I am a pre-service teacher attending Wartburg College. I have a field experience placement this semester where I am teaching science to Kindergarteners. I am working on a unit all about apples. We will start the unit with a read-aloud and craft. Then we will investigate an apple and label all its parts. Next, we will go through the apple growth stages. Then we will conduct experiments on decaying apples. This all leads up to a problem being introduced to the students.
The problem is: “I have a friend that is a farmer at an apple orchard. He is having a hard time harvesting the apples his trees grow. Do you think we can help him harvest as many apples as possible?”
As a class, we will discuss how when the apples fall on the ground they need to be picked up as quickly as possible so they do not start to decay before the farmer can sell them. The students will then work through the engineer design process to create a device to help the farmer collect the apples. The students will actually build these devices and test them out and then make revisions to their designs.
My question is, what is the best way to have the students work through the design process to make sure they go through each step?
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