This is an activity resource I found about a robot arm activity for students. The information for the activity along with the full pdf file and the student worksheet are free to download. I liked all the information that the page offered, as well as the complete list of items for each group of students to use to create their robot arm. I think that this is another great way for students to see the many different sides of engineering. It's not all just about space or building skyscrapers. The goal of the project itself is for the robot arm each group creates to be able to grab and carry a foam cup. It's not too much of a daunting task and the goal is clear and is easily viewed when it comes to assessment.

Gamestar Mechanic is my technology resource. This game, available for download and online, teaches kids how to create their own video games. There is a big teacher section online for the program with videos explaining how to use Gamestar Mechanic as well as a place for teachers who use the program to blog about their experiences and share lesson plans using this game. I would like to use this as a tool in problem solving where all my students could help create a "game" or for students to use during free time or inside recess. The pdf file and the ideas for lessons are very interesting and I think this can be used as a tool to open up student's to the many different sides of engineering and creating.

I chose this as an activity resource. This would be a great activity to do with students near the end of the school year after they have gotten the hang of creating their own solutions and putting them to the test to see if they work out well. This particular activity treats a water balloon as a brain and students construct a "skull" made out of different objects to keep the brain safe and secure when it's dropped from a certain height. I would use this with many different materials for students to use so we could study the outcome of all of the materials and then complete some kind of chart or graph to show our findings.

This is a video resource that I found on Youtube. The many different types of structures and architectural pieces can help students relate more to engineering by showing them structures that they might pass by daily. However, there are also more historical pieces of architecture to allow students to explore just what engineering can create. With all of the historical background, this is also a great way to show connections between science and another area of study. I would use this as an opener to show my students all the different ways in which engineers solved problems for themselves and for society. My science standard is all about students being able to come up with their own solutions to problems and this is a great starting point for that.

This is a lesson plan resource that covers the explanation of simple machines and a couple activities in which students create their own simple or complex machines. The lesson plan also lists some great books and activity pieces to buy that would go great along with each of the lesson sections and also lists a few ideas for homework materials. The only ones that were working correctly were #3 to see the design of a lapbook and #5 to see simple machine coloring pages. Also note that choice #6 under Homework Ideas does cost money. I personally loved the ideas for creating simple and complex machines. It would be a chance for students to work together on creating a solution (3-5-ETS1-2). This would be a great way to breakdown the learning of simple machines into easy pieces that can be organized and taught well.

This is the resource I have chosen as a science field trip. After looking over some of the different choices for demonstrations I think that the "Science Goes Splat" would be the best choice for my students. It's a chance for them to help in making predictions and observations about a problem that the whole group is facing which goes along with my standard (3-5-ETS1-2) in that the students are coming up with ideas about what may happen within the constraints of the demonstration. This is also a great way for them to see an exercise in gravity that we may not be able to do in the classroom

This is a video that NASA created about Engineers and explaining what they do. The whole point of my standard (3-5-ETS1-2) is students going through many different possibly solutions to figure out the one that works best. This video demonstrates an engineer going through the process of picking out a solution that works best for his problem out in space. It's a great way to introduce a lesson and could work as the beginnings of an activity idea for students to do in becoming "space engineers".

This lesson plan introduces the idea of creating and engineering to solve a problem. Students work in groups to create a flotation device to support a can of soup. There's a pdf for the lesson and then a word document for each group students to use where they draw out their idea and explain the certain steps and conclusions they came to during the whole process. I chose this lesson because it fits into my standard about talking about different solutions to a problem by looking at the confinements and criteria that the activity has in place (3-5-ETS1-2)