Engineering Encounters: Reverse Engineering

by: Veronica Cassone McGowan, Marcia Ventura, and Philip Bell

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This column presents ideas and techniques to enhance your science teaching. This month's issue shares information on how students’ everyday experiences can support science learning through engineering design. In this article, the authors outline a reverse-engineering model of instruction and describe one example of how it looked in our fifth-grade classroom to highlight how the model can be applied to other engineering lessons.

Grade Levels

Elementary

Topics

CCC6: Structure and Function Crosscutting Concepts Disciplinary Core Ideas Disciplinary Core Ideas in Engineering, Technology, and the Application of Science ENCdl Engineering ETS1.A: Defining and Delimiting an Engineering Problem ETS1.B: Developing Possible Solutions ETS1: Engineering Design Science and Engineering Practices Science and Technology Science as Inquiry Science Focus SEP6: Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions STEM Three Dimensions of the Framework and/or NGSS

Details

Type Journal ArticlePub Date 4/1/2017Stock # sc17_054_08_68Volume 054Issue 08

Community Reviews

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Kasey Mannion

Encourages Creativity

I appreciate how the reverse engineering process gives students the opportunity to explore engineering solutions without being given limitations or conditions- this promotes student creativi... See More

James (Nottingham, MD)

Good Start

Reverse engineering seems like a good way to start having students understand the relationship between science and engineering especially at the elementary level. I like the process of havin... See More

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