Engineering & Design

Engineering and Design

Students experience engineering in both sixth and eighth grade. The Engineering and Design courses have a strong interdisciplinary tie to the middle school science program. Both courses promote technological literacy and introduce students to the engineering and design process through a variety of projects that involve finding a solution to a problem. The Massachusetts Science, Technology and Engineering Frameworks provide the guidelines for curriculum.

Sixth Grade – Engineering and Design

Course # 361

This trimester long course meets three times per week. Students are introduced to the engineering design process as a method to solve problems and develop solutions using specific criteria and constraints. Several of the projects require students to build models and/or prototypes that address real world problems. Topics include scale modeling, transportation, and robotics.

Eighth Grade – Engineering and Design

Course # 381

This trimester long course meets three times per week. The course asks student to use STEM skills and the practices of science and engineering to solve real world problems. Students are asked to use the engineering design process to build prototypes to solve challenges. While solving engineering problems, students use science and engineering tools, construct accurate scaled drawings, evaluate models, identify model limitations, and rebuild/redesign to improve their prototypes. The topic students experience in this course as engineers include material science, structures, and robotics. The curriculum topics also prepares students for the engineering component of the MA Science, Technology and Engineering MCAS grade eight assessment.