The Silicon Classroom — Third Street Field Trip
Our first visit to Third Street Community Center helped us learn more about the kids and their goals for the tech challenge. We woke up bright and early to get to Third Street for our activity starting at 9:30. Eight groups of around four 4–8th graders had just met their mentors for the next fourteen weeks. Our job was to break the ice among the groups while gaining empathy for the kids.
We started with a design challenge: build the tallest, studiest tower you can out of marshmallow and toothpicks. Some groups started right away, while others drew our their plans before getting started. A few minutes into the building, we threw a surprise at them: they had to rotate with another group and start building another tower! The kids grumbled about losing their towers but quickly caught on to the next group’s work. We switched twice more before eventually bringing all the towers together into a marshmallow city.
From this exercise, the kids learned the importance of collaboration and the real-world experience of continuing someone else’s project. We were also able to observe their design practices and ability to work together. They were quick to jump in and start working. However, despite their enthusiasm, they sometimes started building different pieces without a plan, so we had to keep them on track and help them remember the overall goal.
After some team icebreakers including building a group story and two truths and a lie, we jumped into our next segment: a time machine activity! We asked the kids to pretend they were 90 years in the future, 10 years in the past, 10 years in the future, and 10 days after completing the Tech Challenge. The last two allowed us to answer our design questions about their motivation for joining the challenge and any worries they had. 10 years into the future, many of the kids expressed a desire to be at college. Others laid out their career plans, including becoming doctors, vets, and (of course) engineers. 10 days after the tech challenge, they described winning medals and feeling relieved to be done.
During this activity, we dug deeper into the students’ motivations. For some, their parents were their primary reason for coming, but others listed a desire to learn more or build something cool. Although their career plans surprised us, we hope the tech challenge can teach them that engineering skills can be applied to a wide variety of disciplines. When designing our activity for Spring Break, we should keep these in mind in order to revitalize the kids, even those who might not be planning to become engineers.
Next week, we will further debrief our trip and start brainstorming our next design challenge. We’re excited to plan something awesome for these kids over the next several weeks!
