{"id":160,"date":"2011-09-01T10:43:03","date_gmt":"2011-09-01T10:43:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kidsengineer.com\/?page_id=160"},"modified":"2021-04-19T18:29:18","modified_gmt":"2021-04-19T18:29:18","slug":"mission","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/kidsengineer.com\/?page_id=160","title":{"rendered":"Mission"},"content":{"rendered":"

To understand and promote engineering education in elementary schools.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The goal of the EEC (double E C) project is to create a PK to grade 6 engineering experience based on robotics.\u00a0 Each year, students will have at least one robotics experience.\u00a0\u00a0 In grades K, 2, 4, and 6 students will also have an open ended engineering challenge.\u00a0 We will explicitly teach the engineering design process as appropriate to the grade level.\u00a0 Robotics provides very high interest, motivating, and deep learning experience for students.<\/p>\n

There are many reasons for introducing engineering to students early in their academic experience.\u00a0 First, students will need 21st<\/sup> Century skills for successful careers.\u00a0 These skills differ from skills traditional taught in schools.\u00a0 The Partnership for 21st<\/sup> Century Skills defines the 4 Cs -communication, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking as critically needed by our citizens in the future.\u00a0 Second, the EEC is very rich not only in engineering but in science, math, and technology.\u00a0 English Language skills are also used in the curriculum.\u00a0 Third, the EEC will benefit both girls and boys.\u00a0 We have seen many boys that may be struggling with reading and attention issues really shine when it comes to robotics.\u00a0 For the first time, they are seen as leaders in the classroom.\u00a0 Additionally, girls that may not have had experience with Legos will be gain experience with engineering and building with Legos.\u00a0 Research shows that we cannot wait until middle school and high school to expose girls to science and engineering.\u00a0 Finally, robotics is a very high interest, motivating, and deep experience for students.\u00a0 Their level of understanding is much deeper when actually using and building these machines.<\/p>\n

Typically, early elementary students have few, if any, engineering experiences.\u00a0 The essential question of the EEC project is:\u00a0 how would students look if they received engineering education from grades PK to grade 6? Although we hope the project will contribute to the pool of talented STEM workers in the future to maintain US competitiveness, we believe engineering to be a valuable way of thinking that will benefit all.\u00a0 In today’s media environment, many citizens have trouble distinguishing facts from opinions and also have difficulty with complex scientific theories.\u00a0 Engineering provides a clear way of testing hypotheses, doing research, and determining objective measures of physical processes.\u00a0 The EEC project will teach valuable skills in engineering and many other subjects in a fun and deep way.<\/p>\n

The EEC idea grew out of a Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education grant, now ended, which provided robotics training to 40 teachers and 1500 students at various grade levels in eight different school districts in Western Massachusetts.\u00a0\u00a0 The natural extension of the initial grant is to provide a robotics experience every year, instead of one or two experiences total in elementary school.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To understand and promote engineering education in elementary schools. The goal of the EEC (double E C) project is to create a PK to grade 6 engineering experience based on robotics.\u00a0 Each year, students will have at least one robotics … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-160","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nMission - Kids Engineer!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/kidsengineer.com\/?page_id=160\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mission - Kids Engineer!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"To understand and promote engineering education in elementary schools. 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