Engineering Education for the Next Generation: A Nature-Inspired Approach

by Samuel Cord Stier

Overview

Guide your students through the fascinating world of engineering, and how to draw inspiration from Nature’s genius to create, make, and innovate a better human-built world.

Studded with more than 150 illustrations of natural phenomena and engineering concepts, this fascinating and practical book clearly demonstrates how engineering design is broadly relevant for all students, not just those who may become scientists or engineers. Mr. Stier describes clever, engaging activities for students at every grade level to grasp engineering concepts by exploring the everyday design genius of the natural world around us. Students will love learning about structural engineering while standing on eggs; investigating concepts in sustainable design by manufacturing cement out of car exhaust; and coming to understand how ant behavior has revolutionized the way computer programs, robots, movies, and video games are designed today. You will come away with an understanding of engineering and Nature unlike any you’ve had before, while taking your ability to engage students to a whole new level.

Engineering Education for the Next Generation is a wonderful introduction to the topic for any teacher who wants to understand more about engineering design in particular, its relation to the larger subjects of STEM/STEAM, and how to engage students from all backgrounds in a way that meaningfully transforms their outlook on the world and their own creativity in a lifelong way.

· Fun to read, comprehensive exploration of cutting-edge approaches to K-12 engineering education

· Detailed descriptions and explanations to help teachers create activities and lessons

· An emphasis on engaging students with broad and diverse interests and backgrounds

· Insights from a leading, award-winning K-12 engineering curriculum that has reached thousands of teachers and students in the U.S. and beyond

· Additional support website (www.LearningWithNature.org) providing more background, videos, curricula, slide decks, and other supplemental materials

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393713770
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	03/10/2020
Pages:	360
Sales rank:	853,419
Product dimensions:	7.10(w) x 10.10(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Sam Stier is Executive Director of The Center for Learning with Nature (www.LearningWithNature.org), a non-profit organization providing STEM curricula and teacher training founded on the captivating power and modern importance of the natural world. Mr. Stier leads teacher trainings for primary, secondary, and post-secondary educators all over the world, workshops for design professionals, and is a sought-after public speaker. A consultant on Nature-inspired technological innovation and author of the award-winning K-12 curriculum Engineering Inspired by Nature, he is a faculty member at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, where he teaches science and sustainable design.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction: How to Make Surfers Invisible 1

1 Why a Nature-Inspired Approach? 5

Makes the case that engineering education is broadly relevant to all students, not just those who may become engineers, and highlights the value of a Nature-inspired approach in terms of meeting Next Generation Science Standards, integrating STEM/STEAM subjects, enhancing college and career preparation, generating student interest, fostering a connection with Nature, re-energizing teachers and their practice, and more.

2 Getting Started 27

Offers practical and effective ways to introduce the fascinating subject of engineering and Nature-inspired engineering to students of all backgrounds.

3 Shape and Strength: Learning Structural Engineering from Schoolyard Trees 55

Demonstrates how to unpack fundamental concepts in material science and structural engineering by going no further than the schoolyard. Among other activities, students make models to see physical stress effects using plastic from the garbage bin and learn how professional engineers borrow ideas from trees to improve the safety of buildings and bridges.

4 Enlightened by Bones 85

Explores how professional engineers and designers learn from bones how to make designs lighter without sacrificing performance. Students apply what they've learned to their own redesign of a common household object.

5 Fun with Fluids 97

Investigates engineering concepts related to fluid dynamics, such as learning from snails how to develop flexible armor. Students experiment with viscosity, and design and test gliders based on aerodynamics principles learned from dandelions.

6 Teaching Sustainability Through Engineering 135

Brings a complex and essential topic down to Earth in an engaging, optimistic way. Explores issues and innovations in manufacturing, energy, chemistry, and waste inspired by the ingenious, thriving world around us. Solution-oriented student activities include making cement from car exhaust, a plant-dye-based solar cell, and other activities based on the Five to Thrive framework.

7 Taken by Swarm: Nature-Inspired Computer Science 197

Explores the world of algorithmic thought and explains how professional computer scientists borrow ideas from organisms such as ants and from processes such as evolution to improve movies, video games, and more. Activities examine how complex behaviors can result from simple rules.

8 Students Invent! 221

Discusses the steps involved in Nature-inspired engineering and innovation, and provides practical activities for teachers to apply to mentor students of any age in using design processes in student-led projects, synthesizing students' skills, and building young peoples' sense of empowerment and possibility.

Notes 281

Image Credits 313

Index 325

Editorial Reviews

"Sam Stier offers an altogether new hands-on approach to teaching engineering that draws upon the excitement of living things that are all around us in the world. I only wish that some of my K-12 teachers would have read this extraordinary book."

Norman R. Augustine

"With Sam Stier's work, our students leverage their astonishment and amazement of Nature towards ambition and activism in tackling the immense challenges ahead. Blending solid science with infinite possibility, Sam Stier reminds us that we are not yet finished evolving. "

Robert Gilson

"As a 30-year veteran of STEM education, I consider Engineering Education for the Next Generation: A Nature-Inspired Approach among the best resources I have ever seen."

Brett Criswell

"It is such a wonderful book that I wish I were a K-12 teacher ready to jump into this. The chapter on structural engineering is what we teach to second-year engineering students. My initial thought when I started reading was, why introduce this topic so early to K-12 students? And when I finished, my thought was, why not?"

Mariappan Jawaharlal

"As Stier unpacks how nature has provided an inspiration for innovators and inventors, he creates a compelling case as to why STEAM educators should utilize nature-inspired examples as students first examine the engineering process and engage in engineering experiences. "

Christine Anne Royce

"Enhanced with the inclusion of thirty-two pages of Notes and a thirty-one page Index, Engineering Education for the Next Generation: A Nature-Inspired Approach will prove to be an ideal and extraordinary curriculum textbook that is unreservedly recommended for school district in-service teacher training programs, as well as college and university library Teacher Education collections and supplemental studies reading lists. "

Midwest Book Review