AnnMarie Thomas, Ph.D.
University of St. Thomas
Playfully Engineering Education
Wednesday — August 10, 2011
Pacific Forum — 3:00 p.m.
This talk will look at the playful side of engineering education, both at the collegiate and the pre-collegiate levels.
For the collegiate portion of the talk I'll share some of the unusual collegiate level engineering collaborations that I've participated in, such as "Engineering Dynamics + Circus" and "Engineering Design + Preschoolers." The motivation for, and lessons learned from, these collaborations will be discussed.
The second part of this talk will look at the growing trend of incorporating Engineering into K-12 curricula. One project from the University of St. Thomas which attempts to bring engineering to even the youngest children is the "Squishy Circuits" project. We've developed recipes for both a conductive and an insulating play dough, which allow users to sculpt electrical circuits.
Next: MBARI Intern Symposium