Mrs. Johnson, the pill-popping teacher

This year was the ten-year mark from when I graduated high school. While a student in high school, I had a myriad of characters for teachers. Mr. P clearly had high expectations of us, at least that's how many of us interpreted his intimidating nature while he taught us math. Ms. Y was such an independent and free-spirited lady, often grouchy but always surprised us with her views on current events. Mr. W's classroom I couldn't avoid because he taught many different subjects in our small high school. However, despite the class he always seemed to rave on about the Bush administration and fiscal conservatism, and had a weird obsession with teaching us the location of Jerusalem. I can recall my high school teachers by the personalities they were assigned by a collective of students. It's true that you aren't remembered for what you say or do, but rather how you make people feel. 

There were also some teachers that made us uncomfortable to be around. And I don't mean necessarily the way that Mr. J made us feel when charges came out against him for misconduct with students at his previous school. I'm referring to the cloud of judgement that follows certain teachers around campus based on fictional interactions. Teachers that let their guard down in a moment that was much too visible. Teachers that end up being the most vulnerable to rumors and negative assumptions. Teachers like Mrs. Johnson.

Mrs. Johnson was an unremarkable social studies teacher. She was friendly and had a quirky laugh. At the time, it appeared as though the only things we had to say about her was that she was a "pill-popper". Supposedly, someone at school had seen her take pills during class and somehow in the logic of young high school students that turned into a rumor that she was crazy. After that, every odd gesture, facial twitch, or misplaced memory became an artifact of her insanity. Even her hair style became a characteristic of her supposed mental illness. 

-----------------------------------------

2016 is when I was finally diagnosed with a mental illness. And now I take pills to manage my crazy. For the last year I have been contemplating deeply about how my identity as a teacher is reconciled with the fact that I need to be medicated in order to function well. So many questions have come up for me as a result of my experience wrongfully and immaturely judging and making assumptions about another person, a teacher, for medicating-- or rather just based on the rumor that they were medicating for a mental illness. first of all, I feel terrible for the things I believed and said about Mrs. Johnson. It wasn't fair to her at all. 

Furthermore, I've realized that I entered the profession with so many assumptions about what it means for me to be a good teacher. I think it's common to have an idea of the type of teacher you want to be, possibly based on teachers you did or didn't have. But nonetheless, for years I have been carrying around a standard that I hope to achieve and I had never thought that good teachers needed to take medication for a mental disorder.

I've been wanting to make a post about this for several months now in order to try to articulate my feelings around mental health and teaching. I have yet to arrive to any conclusions, but I am concerned about the lack of visibility of mental health resources specifically for teachers. I am feeling like teachers may be especially vulnerable to mental health crises. So far in my reflection, many questions have come up for me:

• what are the universal attributes of our job that make mental health a struggle for teachers?
• what are the general attitudes among teachers about mental health?
• what is safe to talk about? what is important to talk about?
• can conversations among staff about mental health help address the growing concerns of safety and mass shooting risk?
• what can I do to advocate for more awareness and acceptance of mental health issues in my community?

 

Being diagnosed with a disorder and subsequently given access to medication that has drastically changed my quality of life has been an empowering experience for me. I have had the privilege of education and have grown in my perspective of what it means to live a balanced life, something I had little understanding of as an immature high school student. While I can't control the narrative or judgements made about me by my students, I can proactively advocate for the mental health of myself and my staff. I am just not sure yet what that would look like... 

Socratic Seminar in Physics: RFID technology

One of the exciting ideas that arose from physics curriculum development this year, was an RFID Activity. While we will have the time and space during the summer to flesh out the details of this assignment as well as assessment tools, I was happy to test out the activity with my current regular physics classes.

The original assignment description is shown below. I've bolded the aspects of the assignment that I aimed to hit during this initial trial-run of the activity:

RFID Activity: Students will research the advantages and disadvantages of storing and transmitting personal information via Radio-Frequency identification chip. They will form an opinion about RFID use in a population and participate in a Socratic seminar. After conducting their research, students will utilize a teacher rubric to assess their understanding by completing a personal reflection and citing their specific article resources utilizing APA formatting.

We felt that by doing this activity, we would support students ability to demonstrate progress towards the NGSS Performance Expectations listed below:

• HS-PS4-2: Evaluate questions about the advantages of using a digital transmission and storage of information.

• HS-PS4-4: Evaluate the validity and reliability of claims in published materials of the effects that different frequencies of electromagnetic radiation have when absorbed by matter

And we felt these Cross-cutting Concepts were also relevant to the activity:

• Energy and matter

Science and Engineering Practices we wanted to hit:

• Asking Questions and Defining Problems

• Engaging in arguments from evidence

• Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information

Leading up to the Socratic Seminar, we focused a whole block day (105 minutes) to understanding how data is stored digitally.

As students walked into class, I prompted them to work in small groups to determine "How many computers are in this room right now?" I challenged them to be as precise as possible, and to write them a number on small whiteboards, ready to defend their answer if I ask. All students immediately turned to the Chromebook cart. I had intentionally left the cart door open, so that students were free to walk up to it and see the number of Chromebooks that were currently stored in it. Other hints I left around the room were the "class set" of five calculators, but most groups did not consider the possibility that they were computers until I started walking around holding one. The funnest part of this lesson was definitely when I got the chance to probe them when I noticed groups feel as if they were getting closer to a number. This type of question required that they think outside of the box, be persistent, and pay attention to detail. There were many different models that circulated about the number of cell phones, which almost all students agreed counted as a computer; many assigned each student a cell phone, whereas others would count the number of people in the room and multiplied by 75% or something. Other things that students eventually considered computers were: thermostat, projector, printer, alarm system, classroom digital clock, and human brains.

Observing the numbers on the whiteboard change from ~36 to 90-100 range was exciting. Over the 10 minutes of this warm-up, students were already discussing what it meant for something to be a computer! The discussion after this activity led us to a consensus that a computer is something that collects information and does something with it. This led really nicely into the teacher-centered mini-lectures I had planned.

I showed them the formal definition of a computer: an electronic device for storing and processing data, typically in binary form, according to instructions given to it in a program. I pointed out that there are three components to this definition. Understanding what a computer is means understanding how binary code, hardware, and programming come together. I spent a few minutes pointing out to them that everything we can think of as information, such as pictures, words, sounds, etc., can be translated into binary code. Binary code is the language of computers. I related binary code to our decimal system of numbers, asking them if they've ever wondered why all numbers we can think of are only made up of ten different symbols--because we have ten fingers! I told them that binary code was a version of making numbers that only uses 0s and 1s, and that we'd be practicing translating information (numbers and letters) into binary code.

The next activity was adapted from the Binary Numbers resources from CS Unplugged.



Using "binary cards" with dots printed on them, we practiced using them to write digital numbers in binary code. Card flipped up corresponded with a 1 and card face down corresponded with a 0. The number of dots shown represented the digital number value. I gave them a few examples and walked around the room as I heard "light bulbs" go off. At this point in the lesson, I could tell which kids we hooked and interested in this topic and those that were not so much. While I noticed that mostly all students were able to complete the task with mastery, I hope to provide an opportunity for extension, for those students that were especially interested in binary code in the future.





After an introduction to binary code, we discussed in a teacher-centered lecture how electromagnetic radiation is able to translate into binary signals. This was brief and used the PhET simulation for Radio Waves to demonstrate how moving electrons produce an electric field.

In order to see how this phenomenon manifests in other ways, besides cell phone communication and radio signal transmission, I planned to give students a series of short articles on RFID technology. As they walked into class the next day, I handed each student a slip of paper with one or two sentences taken from the articles they were able to read. There were ten different pieces of text that were passed out to each class of 30 students. I intentionally abstained from using any sentences that had RFID in them to avoid giving it away. When the bell rang, I told them that they all received different excerpts from the same two articles, both relating to the same topic. I prompted them to try to figure out in their table groups what the articles were about. They took about ten minutes and used the time to circulate the room and exchange slips and ideas with their classmates about the possible title or topic of the article. There were some great ideas shared.

• It's about shoplifting.
• It's about healthcare.
• Something to do with the meat industry.
• Or about the military.

The articles I used to distribute to students were
"What is RFID?" - from Technovelgy.com
"How RFID works?" - from Technovelgy.com
How is RFID used inside a living body? - Technovelgy.com
"Problems with RFID" - Technovelgy.com
RFID: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly - Information Week

I condensed all the Technovelgy.com pages to act as "one article" from the same source.

Students were then handed the Socratic Seminar worksheet to complete in order to prepare for the Socratic seminar discussion addressing the question: How are RFID chips good or bad for society?

Solar Vehicle Engineering Design Project: Day 3

Day 3 of the project, our learning objective was that students will be able to design, build and refine a device that works within given constraints to transform one form of energy into another. 

Students were now familiar with the prioritized criteria established for their client. They've brainstormed a couple different designs and are in the process of building a working prototype.

Mondays are early release days for us, which means we have 42 minute long periods. I wanted teams to be able to have time to optimize and refine their vehicles, and have more think time for making the vehicle move.

Some questions that I heard today:

• Are you sure the motor is going to spin in the right direction?
• Which of these is going to bend the least?
• How can we increase the resistance in the circuit because we don't want the motor to go fast?
• Can we hot-glue the motor to the car?
• What do you think of our design, Ms. Minjares? Pretty cool, huh?

Oh yeah... and we didn't have sun today... Although the forecast looks alright for the next week!

What relieves some of the anxiety of depending on weather, is knowing that the way the project has been set up, the sun doesn't need to be out during any of our class meetings. This is because one of the two products students are to create is a video proposal intended for an audience of their client. At some point they will have to record video of their vehicle actually working, but it does not have to be during class. 

The magical thing about today was how I was able to tell after about 5 seconds of observing a team working together which client they had. LST Inc. teams tended towards a compact but boxy design. Cougar Car Company teams all leaned towards the typical race car silhouette. And the Progressive Builders Construction Company teams were stretching the limits of the size of the cargo bed that would fit onto the fixed-sized axles.

At the start of class I reminded students about the BIG PICTURE, that is to say, the two things they are to produce as a result of this project. I felt that going over this at the start of each class keeps them from thinking that their "project" is just about building their car. I had a couple exchanges with students where when I do my rounds of asking "So, where are we in the process?" they say "Oh we're almost done with our project". Almost immediately, another student will respond to them by saying "We're not done until we have the video done and have our interview questions ready." Success!

The CHAMPS for the day set up the behavioral expectations.

As students worked I walked around and handed back the post-its that had their goal for the weekend and asked them how it went. Some students were honest about not thinking about their project, some said they thought about it but were too busy with other things, few said that they didn't realize that the goal they wrote down was for the weekend but rather the whole project. There were still many students that were excited to report back about something they discovered researching information about solar cars and solar cell technology. I wonder about ways to use goal-setting to motivate action in students. 

Here we tried to use a red light bulb as an alternative to the sunlight. Some students chimed in and said that according to their research over the weekend, the solar cells work mostly by collecting UV light.

I'm currently reading Mission High by Kristina Rizga and in it I came across a passage that talked about the value of project-based learning in the context of college and career readiness. The topic of college and career readiness is one that has popped up in professional development meetings at my site, so I was struck by the claim that richer learning happens through carefully executed projects.
"Linda Darling Hammond, professor/researcher of education at Stanford, has found that assessments and tasks designed and scored by skilled teachers, such as essays science projects, research assignments, and presentations are far more effective than standardized tests at promoting learning and diagnosing how students are doing."

For more on this: https://edpolicy.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/publications/accountability-college-and-career-readiness-developing-new-paradigm.pdf

Solar Vehicle Engineering Design Project: Day 2

The learning objective for this day was that students will be able to generate alternative design solutions by brainstorming, modeling and experimenting, and selecting preliminary designs.

Additionally, students will be able to practice effective collaboration by understanding the grading rubric and establishing communication norms with team members.

As students walked into class, I observed many of them reaching for the cabinets to pick up their supply boxes. This is a good sign! I recall my first year, one of the first true successes of the year was assigning the Rube-Goldberg Machine project, and watching students actually want to be in physics class because they were coming in early to resume their building. Since then, I've refined my approach to projects to be not only content driven, but as opportunity for students to develop collaboration and communication skills while learning the content and utilizing the engineering design process. To scaffold collaboration and communication skills for this project, I decided to assign them 10 minutes of silent reading (although I actually told them it would be 7 minutes and 42 seconds to throw them off from watching the clock). In order to clearly communicate behavior expectations, I use a system called CHAMPS... maybe separate post on another day about this. After welcoming them back to class and asking that they not pick up their boxes, I recapped from last class and explained the purpose of our time today. Doing this at the begining was especially important today because I've had several students out of class for AP testing. I reminded them of the Big Picture for this project, since each day we have so far focused on some component of this big picture. They are expected to provide me with two products as a result of their work on this project. The first product is a video--planned, recorded and edited by them as a group. How they choose to divide up the responsibilities is up to them. The second product is an interview. They are to have a one-on-one interview with me the day of their final (this is a different, earlier day for seniors). They will be asked four interview questions, and I provided them with sentences frames for starting their answers in their Engineering Report packet.

I explained the behavior expectations during this next activity using the slide  below.  My intent with this was that they understood that they were being held to high expectations that involved not only the successful building of a working prototype but also that they were able to use scientific data to justify design decisions. The rubric they were reading would have also been very easy to ignore. I recall being a total expert in ignoring the rubric and treated that page/s as just extra paper attached to my packet. The rubric had a purpose and it want students to understand that being provided the rubric is an important tool to use while planning and building their project. (I also want to inject here that I am also interested in strategies to co-create rubrics with students. I know little about how to do this but welcome any resources or feedback). Here is a PDF of the Solar Vehicle Engineering Design Project Rubric.

I gauged the crowd as they read, not only hushing any student tempted to talk but after about 6 minutes, I prompted them to skip over to the video rubric (on the last page) if they hadn't done so already. After the ten-ish minutes of silent reading, I asked them to share with a neighbor their noticings and wondering, then we debriefed as a class. One of the first smarty-pants remarks was that they notice "there are a lot of words" or "I wonder how I'll ever be able to get an A". But that led into a discussion of what kind of message I'm trying to send to them about what I expect, and assuring them that I wouldn't hold them to these standards if I didn't feel they could do it. I believe that the learning process is only successful if there is a foundation of trust between teacher and student.
Students general had similar noticings about the categories being graded or that in order to received the "advanced" grade, they needed to "exceed" expectations.
Many of the wonderings were about grades, such as if they'd be graded individually or group. I told them the video was a group grade and the interview was an individual grade.

This particular sample is from a students that is emerging bilingual. You can see his sketches for designs below his noticings and wonderings. 

After reading the rubric as a class, I transitioned the class into project time by going over the behavioral expectations for the next activity: Optimizing your design solution... which is essentially group workshop time. I invited them all to participate actively in some specific ways, namely by collaborating with their team, being 90-100% engaged, monitoring phone use and limiting to only when necessary to the project, designing and conducting experiments to collect data.

Things I noticed during this time:

• Conversations around which and how many of the gears to use and how to arrange them 
• Problem solving how to attach the axel to the rest of the car while still letting the the wheels rotate
• As per my recommendation, groups assigned a person to look up tutorials on YouTube on how to build the car. 
• Measuring and cutting base boards, cardboard, foam and card stock
• Drawings on paper and whiteboards
• about 30% of groups testing their running vehicle outside
• Recording data on mass, temperature, and force withstanding of materials (missed pictures of the students using infrared thermometers, electronic balances, and force meters w/ LabQuest 2!)
• Snapchatting

In closing, students were assigned an exit ticket. On a post it they had to write down one goal that their team had for the weekend and place the post it on either green, yellow or red to indicate if they've established communication norms. Green meant that students had exchanged phone number with all team members, yellow if they didn't have the phone numbers of some of their team members, red if they are missing the contact information for all of their team members. The picture below is not from the day we did this, but just to show the stoplight method in action. All but four students (from the same group) in the whole day posted their exit ticket on green. Some students had the goal of researching more about solar cell technology, some said they wanted to learn more about video editing tools, and most said they wanted to spend the weekend thinking about other possible designs. 

Solar Vehicle Engineering Design Project: Day 1

On the first day of our Solar Vehicle Engineering Design Project (SVED) my objective was that when given a client context, students are able to ask questions in order to define a complex problem and identify criteria for success by reading a client context and negotiating priorities with a group of 2-3 other students.

The assessments I would use for the days learning objective were included in the Engineering Report, which was handed to every student. The first page of the report provided the structure for the assessment of this learning objective.

Before starting the project, I had closed our last class meeting with a question: can the sun provide us with all the energy we need? I had told them about how when you think about it all of our sources of energy actually originate from the sun (e.g. fossil fuels come from animals that ate plants or ate animals that ate plant which got their energy from photosynthesis which is triggered by the sun). I had spent some time the days leading up to this launch researching solar energy, solar cell technology, and anything related to the topic, because while I, myself, do not have an expert understanding of the topic, do consider it an important issue to bring into the classroom. I talked to students about the cost of solar energy, how it costs four times as much to provide energy from solar cells than from fossil fuels. Students had many questions: Why is it so expensive? Will solar energy ever be cheaper?  I showed students the video TED-ed: How do Solar Panels Work? And that’s when the bell rang. I encouraged them to continue to think about and research this topic between now and the next class meeting (two days later).

The next class meeting, I launched the project with a story: So I was approached by three local companies who all happen to need some sort of vehicle (I had the fake logos that I ripped off of the web last minute displayed on the board behind me as I elaborated on the fiction). They all had heard about the amazing engineering teams that are hosted in this classroom and wanted to propose that we come up with the best possible solution to their problems.

Then, I basically go into each of our three clients, summarizing what they would eventually read on the client cards:

• Progressive Builders Construction Company

• Cougar Car Company

• L.S.T. Inc.

I had spent weeks mulling over and refining the words that would go onto the client cards--they are crucial to the success of the project. In my story-launch my aim was to engage them, or hook them into the motivation for the project before handing them any worksheets or anything that resembled school work. But later on in the project, the client cards serve the super important purpose of providing the context for their problem. The cards had to have enough detail to imply value of some criteria over others, but not too much that it gave the answer away.

After I finished my initial briefing of the three clients to the class, they were ready to choose. I told them I would pass out a client card to each student. Each card had the context for one of the three companies that were interested in working with us. They had the choice of keeping the client card they were handed or trading with someone else for another client. I had two rationales for doing this. 1. I had control over the number of students that were assigned to each client, meaning I’d have a balanced number of teams for PBCC, CCC and LST. 2. It gave the students the opportunity to choose who they wanted to work with. After they decided on the client, then they could start to form teams of 3-4 who also had chosen that client. Of course, right away students were negotiating among themselves which client to go with and concurrently whether they wanted to work with certain people or not.

Students were tasked with writing out a problem statement once they had chosen their client, team, and read the Design Brief. The Design Brief provided students with all the information they need to know about their client in order to design the best solution. This resource was supported by the work done by the Georgia Youth Science and Technology Centers, although I picked it up from an NSTA 2016 session called “Argumentation by Design: Integrating Evidence-Based Arguments with STEM Design Tasks“ presented by Amy Peacock (Clarke County School District: Athens, GA), Jeremy Peacock (Northeast Georgia RESA: Winterville, GA), Paul Blais (Burney-Harris-Lyons Middle School: Athens, GA). They share and post all their resources to the public for free on  http://bit.ly/ArgueByDesign.

Most students chose to work with the group of others that they consistently worked with, while I was happy to see some others branch out. They had about 20 minutes to form their problem statement. In previous engineering design projects, they had also used a sentence frame to form their problem statement. While most groups took their time to form a more specific problem statement to guide their design, a few needed some extra probing my me to get them to think about the specific reason, or main criteria for their design. My job was to help guide them in this aspect of the engineering design process.

We as engineering seek to design a solar powered car in order to utilize sustainable source of energy for Cougar Car Company.

vs.

(not pictured) We as EHS engineers seek to design a solar-powered vehicle in order to provide a fast racecar for the Cougar Car Company.

The next part of the lesson was by far my FAVORITE. A decision matrix was introduced to me during that NSTA session previously mentioned. I was hooked to the idea because it allowed for a way to prioritize criteria in a way that is more objective and methodical than any other way I’ve seen students use. I also liked that the decision matrix replicates an authentic engineering practice, which I understand to be true based on anecdotal evidence (someone at the workshop said so). At this point, I told the class they’d be working with the criteria: cost, acceleration, load capacity, and durability. Yes--I could have had them determine four criteria themselves, but in an effort to provide more scaffolding and control over the materials and anticipate student answers I chose to assign them. The decision matrix uses votes from each team member to assign a value to each criterion. One team member acting as both facilitator and participant, goes around the group and asks to compare relative value of criteria. For example, to fill in the first non-shaded box, the facilitator asks “How many think that acceleration is more important than cost?” then writes the number of votes into that box. And for the next box in the row, facilitator asks “How many think that acceleration is more important than durability?” and writes in the number of yes-votes. The end product is a list of values assigned to each criterion, thus providing students with a quantitative way to assess and consider how important a certain feature is to their design.

This part was my favorite because of all the awesome talk I heard. Seriously, I wish I could’ve had an audio recording of the class during this time. It especially helped that students were mostly working with classmates that they felt comfortable with. Even with using the decision matrix, it wasn’t important at all that there was a consensus. They were allowed to disagree on relative value. However, I heard and saw students analyzing and interpreting the text (Design Brief) to support their assertions that one criterion was more valuable than another for their particular client.

For Cougar Car Company:

“They want it to be just as fast as their regular gas cars… no matter the cost… so we can spend as much money as we want”

“I mean, load capacity matters but they really only need to fit one person in the car--the driver. They don’t need any more than that so it’s not as important”

For L.S.T. Inc.

“It is probably better that is goes fast because then the tourists can see more places and they’ll pay more.”

“But we need to build it cheap so that they can make money off of it, and if they make more money off of it then it's okay if it’s not that durable ‘cause they can afford to replace it”

For Progressive Builders Construction Company”

“It doesn’t seem like they can afford to spend that much, but it would be better if it lasts longer.”

“It says they want to use it to carry as much dirt as possible, but if it’s fast then they can go back and forth more”

Once they had completed prioritizing their criteria, they were prompted to move into Design Exploration. From previous engineering tasks, most remembered that they are expected to work by themselves for at least the first few minutes, and then compare ideas and provide feedback. Many groups used this time to pick up their materials to get a sense of what was available. This was where most groups left off, although I used this time to monitor progress among groups, eventually letting a couple groups know that they were behind where they needed to be at this point in the project in order to stay on track to finish.

Each team was given a plastic box (99 cent store) with a 2 V solar cell and DC solar motor, wooden base board, set of four gears, four wheels, two axles, a straw, and samples of the three building materials they have to work with (foam, cardboard and card stock). They were told they may store it in the classroom or take the box with them. The solar car parts are from Kelvin .

Solar Vehicle Engineering Design Challenge: Rationale

In the past year and a half, I’ve had the pleasure of attending several conferences and workshops focused on designing and implementing engineering tasks in the science classroom. As a physics teacher, it seems natural to incorporate engineering tasks into several of our units of study. So far this year we’ve done

• Name Tag Design Challenge as an introduction to the engineering process (resources from KSTF Engineering Task Force)
• Snickers Bar Challenge as an model for balanced forces
• Pendulum Design Challenge as an application of the model for period of pendulum
• Super Smash Egg Drop Challenge as an application of the impulse and momentum models

I’ve been able to observe growth in students ability to think outside the box as a result of these projects. Students developed the skills to define problems by first understanding the context, constraints, and criteria for success--a process that involves them being able to ask and seek answers to many questions. I also observed students be able to use available tools to design and build, and use data to refine or optimize solutions to complex problems. I’ve tried out several ways to assess students ability to communicate the solution, in oral, written and video form.

As a result, I feel that students are able to better recognize the process of engineering as, first addressing a need by defining a problem, then brainstorming solutions to that problem, and optimizing those solutions through experimentation, and finally communicating the design solution to an audience. My goal is to have students recognize the process of engineering as a method of problem solving that is methodical and scientifically grounded. Most of my background for this philosophy comes from the resources provided by the Knowles Science Teaching Foundation Engineering Task Force. Their website has many teacher tools available to make engineering tasks possible to plan.

Engineering and the NGSS:

Many of the NGSS performance expectations for engineering apply to the content of a traditional physics course. The specific performance expectations listed as incorporating engineering practices are listed below. The Solar Vehicle Engineering Design Challenge is intended to support students ability to perform those that are bolded.

HS-PS2-3: Apply scientific and engineering ideas to design, evaluate, and refine a device that minimizes the force on a macroscopic object during a collision.

HS-PS2-6:  Communicate scientific and technical information about why the molecular-level structure is important in the functioning of designed materials.

HS-PS3-3: Design, build, and refine a device that works within given constraints to convert one form of energy into another form of energy

HS-PS4-5: Communicate technical information about how some technological devices use the principles of wave behavior and wave interactions with matter to transmit and capture information and energy.

In addition to these physical science PEs, the NGSS has also written the Engineering Design (ETS)  performance expectations.

HS-ETS1-1. Analyze a major global challenge to specify qualitative and quantitative criteria and constraints for solutions that account for societal needs and wants.
HS-ETS1-2. Design a solution to a complex real-world problem by breaking it down into smaller, more manageable problems that can be solved through engineering.
HS-ETS1-3. Evaluate a solution to a complex real-world problem based on prioritized criteria and trade-offs that account for a range of constraints, including cost, safety, reliability, and aesthetics, as well as possible social, cultural, and environmental impacts.
HS-ETS1-4. Use a computer simulation to model the impact of proposed solutions to a complex real-world problem with numerous criteria and constraints on interactions within and between systems relevant to the problem.

If we step back from these performance expectations, and think about the broader picture, all the aforementioned PEs are supported by these Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCI):

• ETS1.A: Defining and Delimiting Engineering Problems
• ETS1.B: Developing Possible Solutions
• ETS1.C: Optimizing the Design Solution

And Science and Engineering Practices:

• Asking Questions and Defining Problems
• Using Mathematics and Computational Thinking
• Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions
• Engaging in Argument from Evidence
• Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information

And Crosscutting Concepts:

• Systems and System Models
• Stability and Change

Appendix I describes the level of integration envisioned by the NGSS as well as address rationalizations for including engineering in the standards.

Supported by research done by the National Research Council, the Framework for NGSS believes in the approach that “providing students a foundation in engineering design allows them to better engage in and aspire to solve the major societal and environmental challenges they will face in the decades ahead.”

I found interesting that the Framework was written with the intent to address two misconceptions about engineering.

1. Engineering design is not just applied science
2. Technology describes all the ways that people have modified the natural world to meet their needs and wants, not just computers and electronic devices.

According the Framework, at grade 9-12, students should be engaged in engineering design tasks that focuses on complex problems that include issues of social and global significance. Using sources of renewable energy is a global issue that invites innovation. In this project, students use solar cells to provide the energy to their vehicle. At the start of the project, we had a class discussion of why it was important to learn about, research and invest in solar cell technology. For their final performance assessment, students are to provide an explanation, using a diagrammatic model, of how solar cells work to provide energy, a task that is primarily supported by their own research of the topic.

In an effort to design and implement a project that is aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards, I will list the dimensions of NGSS that I believe are supported by this project, along with an explanation of how the project supports that dimension.

Dimensions of NGSS	Connection to the project
ETS1.A: Defining and Delimiting Engineering Problems (DCI) SEP: Asking Questions and Defining Problems	Students are given a client context and from that client context must determine what the actual need is and state it in a form that identified their role, the problem to be solved, the main reason (or criteria) for the design, and the stakeholder. The client context provides information to students about the need for a vehicle, and additionally the requirements (criteria) for the design in order to best meet the needs of the students. This process requires that students are able to ask questions about the client and negotiate answers within their team.
ETS1.B: Developing Possible Solutions (DCI) SEP:Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions	Students must use available materials and tools to design and build a vehicle that meets the needs of the client/stakeholder and solves the identified problem. The problem the students will face require taking into consideration four different criteria (cost, durability, acceleration, and load capacity). Each criteria has its own level of priority depending on the client context and it is up to the students to determine those values. Students designing a solution for a given client context, that solution being a vehicle that meets the criteria, set by them.
ETS1.C: Optimizing the Design Solution  (DCI)	Students are to design and conduct experiments to qualitatively determine their designs ability to satisfy the criteria for success.  They will later use that experimental data to support an argument in favor of their design.
SEP: Using Mathematics and Computational Thinking	Students are to collect data on the weight, load capacity, acceleration and cost of the final design of the vehicle. This requires that students work with mathematics to develop models of the data.
SEP: Engaging in Argument from Evidence	Students are to record, edit and produce a video as a proposal for their client, arguing from evidence collected during the optimization process in order to support the claim that their design is able to meet their needs.
SEP:Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information Communicate technical information or ideas (e.g. about phenomena and/or the process of development and the design and performance of a proposed process or system) in multiple formats (including orally, graphically, textually, and mathematically). (HS-PS4-5)	As an individual performance assessment, students are to be interviewed by me (the teacher) in order to provide an explanation to how solar panels work using the wave or particle model of light. They are to do this using a diagram and/or verbally.
CCC: Systems and System Models CCC: Structure and Function CCC: Stability and Change CCC: Energy and Matter CCC: Cause and effect	In communicating information on how solar panels work, students will be able to relay concepts of energy flow (model) and changes in voltage and current, as well as explain the structure and function of the silicon wafers in a solar cell. Many of these cross-cutting concepts are expected to come up during the process of the interview.

According to the Framework:

“Engineering design at the high school level engages students in complex problems that include issues of social and global significance. Such problems need to be broken down into simpler problems to be tackled one at a time. Students are also expected to quantify criteria and constraints so that it will be possible to use quantitative methods to compare the potential of different solutions. While creativity in solving problems is valued, emphasis is on identifying the best solution to a problem, which often involves researching how others have solved it before. Students are expected to use mathematics and/or computer simulations to test solutions under different conditions, prioritize criteria, consider trade-offs, and assess social and environmental impacts.”

NGSS states that “By the end of 12th grade students are expected to achieve all four HS-ETS1 performance expectations (HS-ETS1-1, HS-ETS1-2, HS-ETS1-3, and HS-ETS1-4) related to a single problem in order to understand the interrelated processes of engineering design.”

Projects that incorporate engineering must be able to demonstrate the opportunity and provide supports for students to engage in a process that requires them to ask question to define a problem, use the context to determine criteria and constraints for success, use an inquiry-based approach to experiment and analyze data, and finally communicate that solution to an intended audience.

In the next couple of weeks, I will be documenting how the Solar Vehicle Engineering Design Project is able to provide the opportunity and supports for students to be able to meet these objectives.