Improving our play dough process...

On Thursday we began our play dough process. Students reviewed their rubrics and scoring sheets to decide if their play dough is high quality or low quality. We reviewed the ingredients that we would use to make the play dough and what measurements we decided to use.  Students were very eager to get their hands on mixing these ingredients together.

At the end of the activity, about a quarter of the students made high quality play dough, a quarter made okay quality play dough, and the last half made low quality play dough. Students were shocked to see their first attempt fail. We went over the engineering design process and I explained to them that this happens often to engineers and that it doesn't stop them from trying again. We reviewed the improve step and as a class came up with some ideas of how we would improve our process. Many students came up with using less water, or more flour, or even using a different order of mixing the ingredients.

On Friday we started our activity out by discussing the changes we wanted to make in our process. We reviewed the ingredients and amounts students decided to use.  As students were making their improved play dough, I saw more smiles and lots of excitement. Many came to me with a smile from ear to ear saying, "I HAVE HIGH QUALITY PLAY DOUGH!" They were so impressed by their ability to change the ingredients and process to make good play dough.

After we created our play dough, we went back to our working station to review our play dough texture and usage test rubric. Students used their rubrics to give them a final score on their improved play dough. We had a blast doing this activity and many of the students said they wanted to go home and make an even better play dough and add color to it.

Overall, we learned about the job of a chemical engineer and using the engineering design process to create something and improve it. I cannot wait to introduce the class to their next Engineering is Elementary unit. It will be fun to see them use what they learned from this process and apply it to their next challenge.

THURSDAY PLAY DOUGH PROCESS

Brandon and Calla were sad their first attempt didn't work.

FRIDAY PLAY DOUGH DESIGN