Can You Save Fred??

While searching for a good lesson that would allow me to introduce the Engineering Design Process, I came across the "Can You Save Fred" activity.  I told the students that my friend, Fred (who happens to be a worm) enjoys boating, but never learned how to swim.  The problem is his boat capsized and, because worms have small brains and aren't too smart, he didn't have his life preserver on.  It (gummy Lifesaver) became lodged under the boat (plastic cup).  The challenge for the students was to get the life preserver out and place it around Fred so he could swim to shore.  The catch?  They could only touch the materials with paperclips. 

I had the students working in groups of 3 and they each had one paperclip.  This activity began with an explanation of our learning target, "Through inquiry, I can identify the steps to the Engineering Design Process."  We broke the target apart and discussed what inquiry is and how it would look in a classroom.  The students then began the task of saving Fred.

I have to say that my classroom became quite loud, although the students were on task the entire time.  I even had one teacher stop in to see what the excitement was all about.  He made the comment that it was true active learning.  The students were planning out their moves and, most importantly, discussing how to improve what they were doing.  Eventually, all groups were successful and very excited to pose for a picture of Fred.


While a simple activity, there was a lot of learning going on.  After having the students both draw and write out the steps they went through, we compared this to the steps of the Engineering Design Challenge: Ask, Imagine, Plan, Create, Improve.  They were able to identify the phases they experienced and relate them back to the EDP. 

We once again reviewed our learning target and determined  that we did reach it and more because we could not only identify the steps, but explain how they are used in the real world. 

Many great discussions came up from what a real scientist does, to how the EDP can be used in writing and science.  I look forward to more of these discussions throughout the year.  It was a great day in our classroom!

Here's to STEM!
Mrs. Giran