Mr. McGregor's Wall

Our most recent engineering challenge was to design a wall to keep a rabbit out of a garden.  We began with the "Imagine" stage of the design process.  I read the class "The Story of Peter Rabbit" and we talked about the characters and events in the literature.  We had a visit at school from "Ruffles" the rabbit so everyone could see a rabbit up close and pet it and get a good look at its fur and claws and strong back legs.  We also talked with a garden expert over the internet and asked lots of questions about gardens, garden pests, and how to keep your garden from being eaten.  All of these experiences added to the students' background knowledge about the topic and helped them be prepared to be successful.

Then came the "Planning" stage of the design process.  We studied the materials that would be available for building and the class worked in groups of about 3 students to design their first plan.

The pictures below show groups in the "Design" stage where they are building their wall according to their first plan and trying to make things work.  That led pretty quickly to the "Improve" stage where students tried to fix what didn't work the way they wanted it to.  At this point of the design process we always get into a loop of designing and testing and improving as long as time, materials, and energy hold out.

Some walls got taller than others and students learned that with limited resources, you must plan carefully.  During our final tests, the robots played the part of rabbits trying to get through the wall.  All groups were at least partially successful and during the "Share" part of the design process, we watched the final tests together and discussed what was strong about each wall and what ideas they still have for further improvements.

This design process (imagine, plan, design, improve, share) is what we use to organize our engineering projects, but really it is applicable to many other areas! In math, writing, and reading we try something out (figuring out a new word, solving a problem, spelling a word) and test it to see if it makes sense with what else we know.  If it doesn't, we go back to try to improve our solution.  As we work through many other design projects this year, students will begin to talk about these stages very naturally and incorporate the "design thinking" into many things they do.  Look for examples in daily life of how you use this cycle!