NEWSLETTER
Key points:
Taking public science learning beyond its on-site exhibits and programs, the Boston Science Museum has launched Youth Engineering Solutions (YES), a collection of preschool through eighth grade engineering and STEM curricula designed for engage students in authentic and practical challenges related to their lives and communities.
YES builds on more than three decades of research and development by the Museum's PreK-12 education division, under the leadership of founding director Dr. Christine Cunningham, senior vice president of STEM Learning at the Science Museum.
Applying a new model for equity-oriented, socially engaged engineering learning developed by the Education Division, YES encourages all children to see themselves as passionate engineers and problem solvers, prepared to make a difference in the world. world.
The demand for high-quality, standards-aligned learning resources for students and their educators is enormous. Nationally, the pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing educational inequalities and caused sharp academic declines in both math and reading that have yet to stabilize. According to the results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress test, approximately two decades of academic progress have been lost during the pandemic.
Free of charge and aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), YES curricula respond to this great need. Each unit challenges students to address an important real-world problem. Drawing on scientific knowledge, students brainstorm designs and then iteratively build, test, and analyze them to generate original solutions. As they collaboratively engage in real engineering practices and persist despite failure, students strengthen their STEM and language proficiency simultaneously.
“We are dedicated to empowering children to become lifelong STEM learners and professionals,” said Tim Ritchie, president of the Science Museum. “Equity-oriented and socially engaged, Youth Engineering Solutions is the newest program in our award-winning curriculum division. “It will be available to educators free of charge to ensure equal access and provide opportunities for students, everywhere, to reach their full potential as budding engineers.”
YES units place each lesson in a social context, encouraging students to consider the impacts of both scientific problems and engineering solutions on different individuals, groups and systems. Through engineering challenges that have many viable solutions, students are encouraged to value diverse approaches and reflect on the social, environmental, and ethical implications of proposed designs.
Twelve initial units have been launched in primary, secondary and after-school, the latter with support from the National Science Foundation. Each begins with a story, comic, or video featuring diverse narrators who place the problems under consideration in context, model engineering behaviors, and introduce age-appropriate engineering design processes. Through the YES curriculum, students will design sun hats, night lights, filters to reduce plastic waste entering the ocean, eco-friendly slippers, medication coolers, rescue shuttles, and more.
Generously funded by Math, each of the YES Middle School units is accompanied by two computer science modules that demonstrate how computational thinking approaches and tools can facilitate engineering problem solving. These computer modules take advantage of free MATLAB interactive, which allow students to interact with a numerical computing and programming platform used by scientists and engineers around the world.
“We have spent four years working collaboratively with faculty to develop materials that encourage students to bring their talents, ideas and creativity to generate solutions to real-world engineering problems,” Cunningham said. “We are pleased to share these resources with the goal of educating the next generation of engineering and STEM leaders who will thoughtfully shape the world we live in for the good of us all.”
YES units and curriculum materials, including a teacher's guide, student engineering notebooks, classroom slides, family resources, and assessment tools, are available for educators to download for free at yes.mos.org. As part of the Museum's Year of the Earthshot, a year of focus on climate solutions that will help us live more sustainably on Earth, many of the units feature challenges with environmental themes.
Youth Engineering Solutions (YES) has received generous support from the museum's lead partner, MathWorks, and the National Science Foundation. Additional support is provided by Pennsylvania State University.
This press release originally appeared online.
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