Solve A Word Problem

Our Process

This project was to solve a world problem. The world problem our group chose was school shootings and how to prevent them. We started our process by thinking of all the different things effecting the world. For example homelessness, wild fires, and over population. Individually we named all the ideas we had, shared them with our group, narrowed it down to the top three, and then focused in on one idea which you will do for your project. We decided on school shootings because we are students and we are effected by this problem. After deciding which problem we were going to solve we began to research our problem and find out all about it, like facts, history, and other important parts to the problem. Previous to the start of research we learned how to annotate by looking through articles and jotting down notes. When researching and finding websites we tried to stay away from websites with .com and websites that include many advertisements and banners. Most of the websites we used for research were .gov or .edu sites.

After completing all of our research and annotations we thought of how we were going to fix our problem. To start this process Vinny, Sadie, and I all took out our notebooks and we started saying ideas and writing them down no matter what the idea was. We then decided as a group which one we think would be the best solution to our problem. The solution we picked was a training program for teachers about how to prevent future school shootings. We decided this solution because other solution were about when the shooting is happening and in that situation there is still a shooting occurring. In our solution we are trying to stop the event before it happens. Our prototype was a slide show about the program to inform others.

Engineering Design Cycle

The engineering design cycle consists of seven steps. These steps include research, imagine, plan, create, test, improve, and ask. The first step to the engineering design cycle is researching. We started the project by researching our problem and finding as much as we can about it. The second step to the design cycle is imagine. The imagine step is to think of possible solutions. We did this by brainstorming as a group and writing all ideas down for our solution to the world problem. The next step is plan . We accomplished this step by narrowing all of our ideas down to one which was our solution to the problem, the teacher program. The fifth step is create which is making a prototype. We decided to make our prototype a google slide of our teacher program solution and details about school shootings. The sixth step is improve. We improved our slideshow because we did a lot of research and there was not much research or facts in our slideshow presentation. We then added a couple more slides about our facts and research which made our presentation longer and more important. The final step is ask, which is identifying the needs and constraints. For our solution we would need funding for the program and trained professionals to train the teachers.

Reflection

This project was a good experience because we got learn how to find a solution to a world problem. We are going to run into so many problems in our life and they may be very small or as big as the ones we looked into and researched fro this project. The world problem we picked worked well with us because we are students and we don't want to have to deal with this kind of stuff. As students we don't want to have to fear of something happening at school and with this solution kids with start to feel safer at schools. I really enjoyed working with my group. All three of us can be funny and talkative people and they may have got in the way of our work a little but we did control ourselves an get our work done before doing anything other than the project. When someone in the group started getting off task we were good at getting them back on and being productive. In this project I was quite happy with how our presentation went. Usually I get nervous when I have to present a project to the class which is odd because I think I can be a friendly and talkative person. This time I made note cards and tried to memorize most of my lines but I would still look down at my note cards pretty often. Soon I would like to ditch the note cards and memorize my line and give the audience my full attention. This time what made the presentation different than the others was that we went first and that really helped a lot. Because when I go near the middle or near the end I feel like the whole time I am worrying about when I am going to go and I start to get nervous. That did not happen this time and maybe I will start going in the beggining for my upcoming projects and for other classes too. Overall I really enjoyed this project and I learned a lot more than I did coming into the project.