Engineering Challenge: Designing a Portable Drilling Rig

Notes from our reviewers

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• Teaching Tips
  This activity would take some time to prepare as there are a number of materials that teachers would have to gather/purchase, worksheets to print, and consideration for how to group students. Teachers should plan for at least an hour, well in advance, to prepare for the activity. This activity can be scaffolded to provide more or less support for students depending on the challenge level the teacher desires. For example, for more support teachers could provide sentence stems or a template for students to write up their instructions. There are a number of additional resources found in the student worksheets, as well as some additional resources found in the teacher guide that could be used prior to the activity to provide background information or afterwords in order to extend student thinking. This activity may be best used at the beginning of a unit on Antarctic exploration or climate and glacier science to engage students and give them a tangible example to recall as they learn more about ice sheets and climate change. For example, [link https://cleanet.org/clean/educational_resources/collection/index.html?search_text=ice+core&q1= 'CLEAN'] has many resources that would fit well with this topic, including videos and activities that compliment ice core research.
• About the Science
  This activity is based on the real process that scientists and engineers take part in to build and utilize drilling rigs in the US Ice Drilling Program, the overarching organization from which this resource comes from. This resource encourage students to think about the design process including functionality and constraints such as materials and price, as well as the connection between science, engineering, and climate change. This engineering activity tasks students with designing their own cost-effective ice drill. Students will understand how and why scientists use ice drills, and additionally they will get a sense of the types of conditions that scientists work under when they perform experiments in Antarctica. This activity will support skills in design process, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration. Passed initial science review - expert science review pending.
• About the Pedagogy
  Students are asked to work in small groups to problem solve and work through the engineering and design process; this activity then encourages further engagement across groups when they switch their instruction sets to build each other's drilling rigs. Teachers can supplement the activity with further readings, reflection, and discussion. This is a hands-on activity that would be engaging and competitive for students. Student worksheets are provided as Google Docs. The teacher can make a copy of these documents to edit and differentiate as they see fit. The teacher and student guide is thorough and easy to follow. There are a number of additional resources such as videos included in both the student worksheets and the teacher guide that provide valuable background information and opportunities for extension. There are other implementation tips as well, for example, having design groups use a "phone-call" to instruct builder groups on how to construct their rig. Additionally, there is a video found on the lesson home page that walks teachers through the activity and a Powerpoint with an exemplar for students to reference.
• Technical Details/Ease of Use
  Amazon hyperlinks are embedded in the materials list to make material purchases easy. Lesson plan is housed on a Google Doc. Some formatting issues in the guide may prevent the user from being able to read the full text. If you encounter this you can open the guide as a Google Doc with the formatting corrected.