Unit 12 — Exploration and Innovation: Final Design Challenges
Description
In the final month, students engage with culminating design challenges that synthesize skills from throughout the year. Challenges include designing habitats or traps (using the Boston Museum EiE Frog Trap kit), launching projectiles (Stomp Rockets and virtual reality exploration), and investigating water properties. Students apply the full engineering design process to novel problems, working collaboratively, testing solutions, and presenting results. The unit emphasizes creativity, persistence, collaboration, and the application of STEM thinking to new situations. Students reflect on what they learned during the year and how engineers solve real problems in the world.
Essential Questions
- How do engineers approach new and unfamiliar problems?
- What skills and processes help us find good solutions?
- How can we work together effectively to solve challenges?
Learning Objectives
- Apply the full engineering design process to a new challenge.
- Design and build functional prototypes using provided materials.
- Test designs systematically and collect performance data.
- Work collaboratively, sharing ideas and responsibilities.
- Present designs and explain thinking to an audience.
- Reflect on the year's learning and growth as problem-solvers.
- Identify how STEM is used in real-world careers and situations.
Supplemental Resources
- Recyclables and craft materials for building prototypes
- Chart paper for displaying design ideas and results
- Printed images or photographs to support design inspiration
- Graphic organizers for planning final project documentation
Algorithms and Programming
Data and Analysis
Engineering Design
Interaction of Technology and Humans
Nature of Technology
Engineering, Technology, and Applications of Science
Students write in science notebooks, create digital stories about their investigations, participate in collaborative discussions about design problems, and use informational texts to research natural solutions.
Formative Assessments
- Observation of design process and team collaboration.
- Testing data from prototype trials.
- Design sketches and design documentation.
- Student explanations of design thinking and refinements.
Summative Assessment
A completed prototype for the final design challenge with full documentation (design sketches, testing data, iterations, presentation) and a reflection on the design process and learning.
Benchmark Assessment
End-of-year assessment of engineering design process showing mastery of all steps and ability to apply them independently.
Alternative Assessment
Students may demonstrate understanding through a simplified design challenge with fewer materials or a smaller scope, such as designing a single component rather than a full system. Students may respond orally to questions about their design choices, use visual supports like labeled diagrams or photos of their prototype, or work with a peer or adult partner to complete the engineering design process steps.
IEP (Individualized Education Program)
During design and build phases, provide visual step-by-step supports such as picture-based process cards that outline the engineering design cycle stages, helping students track where they are in the challenge. Allow students to demonstrate their design thinking through oral explanation, pointing, or dictation rather than relying solely on written documentation. Offer hands-on material exploration time before the formal challenge begins so students can build comfort with tools and components. Pair students strategically within collaborative groups and check in frequently to ensure meaningful participation and to provide feedback on progress.
Section 504
Provide preferential seating during collaborative work and presentations to minimize distractions and support focus during longer design sessions. Allow extended time during testing and documentation phases, and offer a quiet or low-distraction workspace when students are completing design sketches or reflection tasks. Break the summative documentation into smaller check-in pieces across the unit so the final product does not feel overwhelming.
ELL / MLL
Support vocabulary specific to the engineering design process — such as prototype, test, improve, and design — with visual word cards that include simple illustrations or photographs. Provide simplified oral directions before each phase of the challenge, and invite students to demonstrate understanding by retelling steps in their own words or acting out the process. Allow students to sketch or label design documentation in their home language alongside English, and use visual models and physical demonstrations when introducing each new design challenge.
At Risk (RTI)
Connect each design challenge to concrete, familiar experiences — such as building things at home or observing animals — to activate prior knowledge and lower the entry barrier. Offer a partially completed design template or a small set of pre-selected materials to reduce decision fatigue and help students experience early success before expanding choices. Provide frequent encouragement and brief one-on-one check-ins during the build and test phases to keep students engaged and help them recognize their progress as problem-solvers.
Gifted & Talented
Encourage students to introduce self-directed constraints or variables into their design challenge — such as limiting materials, targeting a specific performance goal, or considering environmental impact — to deepen the complexity of their investigation. Invite these students to document multiple design iterations with written or dictated reasoning for each change, building habits of evidence-based thinking. Students who finish early can explore how a similar engineering problem is solved in a real-world career context or propose a completely new challenge of their own design, supported by teacher guidance.