Engineering-Activity Dreaming: Share your ideas & dreams on what would make an awesome engineering activity for your class!

January 15, 7 -8 pm EST, 6-7 pm CST, 5-6 pm MST and 4-5 pm PST

What types of engineering design activities would you like to have created for your high school PHYSICS / CHEMISTRY/ BIOLOGY class?  Join us as we hear about an NSF funded project, “Building Informed Designers” that hopes to build engineering design activities of various lengths, interest areas, and complexities for high school biology, chemistry, and physics classes.  The 3-year project is just starting, and the leadership team wants to hear from classroom teachers about what topics and types of activities you think would integrate well into your instructional sequence and be meaningful ways to help students improve their engineering design skills and see how science and engineering work together to solve local and world problems.    The webinar will give a brief introduction to a great resource for high school science teachers called “The Informed Design Teaching and Learning Matrix” which can help you and your students understand nine design strategies to move one’s engineering design skills toward that of an “informed designer” rather than making common mistakes of “beginning designers.”   Join us on January 15 to learn a more about engineering design AND share you “wish list” of engineering design activities and teaching support materials you’d like to have!

Bruce Wellman is a National Board Certified Teacher (NBCT, Chemistry) who teaches Engineering Chemistry as part of the Olathe Engineering Academy at Olathe Northwest High School in Olathe, KS.   He received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science Teaching in 2009,  served as a Teacher Ambassador Fellow at the U.S. Department of Education during the 2011-12 academic year, and served as a 2017-18 National STEM Teacher Ambassador for the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) & the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM).     Wellman has organized and lead small- and large-scale professional development for STEM teachers and has been active in bridging the gap between STEM Education research and classroom practices.