OVERVIEW

Activity Overview:

This lesson is a fun introduction to the open-ended, collaborative, and creative problem solving students will be using over the rest of this unit and course. The aluminum boats problem could easily be substituted out for any number of other problems that require students to define their goals, devise a plan, try a solution, evaluate their results, and then iteratively improve from there. The fact that the problem chosen is ’non-computational’ is intentional. Computer science is fundamentally a problem-solving discipline and staying away from traditional computer science problems at this point helps to frame this class as one about problem-solving more generally with computer science being a new ’tool’ to help attack certain types of problems.

Meta description

• Subject Area: Computer Science, Science, Reading/Language Arts, Engineering
• Grade Level : 6-8
• Computer Science Domains:
  • Computing Systems, Data Analysis
• Computer Science Principles:
  • Fostering an Inclusive Computing Culture, Collaborating Around Computing, Recognizing and Defining Computational Problems
• Materials:
  • Website, aluminum foil and pennies
• Considerations: +

Lesson Plan

Overview

This lesson is a fun introduction to the open-ended, collaborative, and creative problem solving students will be using over the rest of this unit and course. The aluminum boats problem could easily be substituted out for any number of other problems that require students to define their goals, devise a plan, try a solution, evaluate their results, and then iteratively improve from there. The fact that the problem chosen is ’non-computational’ is intentional. Computer science is fundamentally a problem-solving discipline and staying away from traditional computer science problems at this point helps to frame this class as one about problem-solving more generally with computer science being a new ’tool’ to help attack certain types of problems.

ASSESSMENT PRE/POST-TEST

1. Identify the reasons someone might visit a given website

On the activity guide, check that students have reasons that a user might visit each website, such as learning more about a topic or entertaining themselves.

2. Identify the reasons someone might create a given website

On the activity guide, check students’ reasons for why the creators would make their respective sites. Student explanations may include pragmatic reasons, such as getting feedback and advice from others, or more social reasons such as personal expression.

OBJECTIVES

1. Communicate and collaborate with classmates in order to solve a problem

In the wrap up discussion question about collaboration, check for advantages to collaboration in problem solving and can list appropriate strategies for overcoming challenges. This practice will be reinforced throughout the unit and course.

2. Iteratively improve a solution to a problem

In the Activity Guide, check for strengths and weaknesses in students’ original design and connection to appropriate changes for the next iteration of the project.

3. Identify different strategies used to solve a problem

In the Activity Guide, check for strategies for overcoming the challenges in the activity. You also may want to check the ‘strengths’ of their designs that students list as part of developing their plan on the second page of the guide.

CATCH/HOOK

Journal Prompt: What makes someone a good problem solver? Be ready to share three ideas with your group.

Discuss: Allow students to share answers at their table groups or with a partner, then have those who are comfortable share with the whole class.

Display: Show students the Question of the Day

Question of the Day: What can help us to work together and solve problems as a team?

ACTIVITY INSTRUCTIONS

Today we’re going to be building aluminum boats. You’ll have an opportunity to build at least two boats and use your experience with each one to improve your designs. Before we get started, decide as a group what kind of design you’d like to make with your first boat. Record your ideas and any possible weaknesses of this design on your activity guide.

Distribute: One copy of the activity guide to each group.

As a class, read through the Goal and Rules sections of the activity guide and answer questions.

Develop a Plan Give students a couple minutes to discuss in groups the approach they will be taking with this first boat. Once groups have recorded their ideas and some possible weaknesses they can come to you to get their aluminum foil and begin building their boats.

Test Your Boat Once groups are ready, have them test their boats by dropping individual pennies into the boat. Remind them of the rules, specifically that they can’t touch or adjust the boats once they’re in the water. Have them record the total number of pennies held on their activity guides.

Evaluate and Improve This first attempt at building our boats was just to get familiar with the challenge. We’re all going to build a second boat and see if we can improve the number of pennies our boats held. Before we get started though, let’s see what we can learn from this trial run.

Share: Have students share the results of their first run with neighboring groups. Ask groups to focus particularly on what the eventual failure of their boat was (e.g. it wasn’t deep enough, it was unstable, etc.) and brainstorm ways to get around those problems.

Develop a Plan Prompt: Now that you’ve had a chance to learn from the first round of boat making, let’s run the same activity again. First, your group will develop a new plan. Just as before, record it on your activity guide, and once you’re ready I’ll come around and give you a new piece of foil.

Support: As you circulate from group to group, ask questions about the group’s focus in redesign. EX: “What aspect of your boat needed the most improvement?” “What ideas from other groups did you want to incorporate to yours?” “Did you feel the need to completely restructure your boat, or make minor modifications?”

Once groups have prepared their new plans give them a new piece of foil and have them each build a new boat.

Test Your Boat Groups can test their designs just as before and record the results on their activity guides.

Reflect Transition: Ask class to return to their own seats to reflect on the activity.

Supplements

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REVIEW

Discuss the Challenge Question of the Day: What can help us to work together and solve problems as a team?

Prompt: You worked in teams for this activity. How did working in a team make this activity easier, how did it make the activity more challenging? What helped your group overcome these challenges?

Discuss: Allow students time to share thoughts with the class.

Remarks All of your thoughts around these questions were great. We’re going to be doing a lot of teamwork in this class. You may be used to thinking about computer science as being all about computers, but first and foremost computer science is about solving problems, and usually that happens in teams. A lot of other parts of this activity like improving designs, and building things is also going to be a big part of this class. I hope you’re excited for the year. Tomorrow we’ll start digging deeper into problem solving itself.

STANDARDS