For our fifth project, we were to use a creative engineering design cycle to help solve a world problem. Cooper, Jake, and I finally agreed to help stop weed use among teens. We tried to accomplish this by having an "Anti-Weed Week" at middle schools to help educate kids early on about the effects of marijuana. We found that many children start using in middle school and we want to prevent them from making the wrong choice.
Creative Engineering Design Cycle:
1. Identify need: First we had to brainstorm and write down as many problems that we could in the world. My group narrowed these down to marijuana use among teens. 2. Research Problem: To start our research we read and annotated 3 articles each to help us understand the text further. 3. Develop Possible Solution: Just as the need, we brainstormed and wrote down many solutions no matter the relevance to the topic.
4. Select Best Solution: From our amazing solutions, we chose to educate teens on marijuana use. 5. Construct A Prototype: Since we wanted a one week education unit on marijuana, we decided to be the educators for our class. 6. Test And Evaluate Prototype: We wanted to find the most effective way to actually lower usage among teens and found that a unit in class would be more effective than an assembly. 7. Communicate Design: Our group asked our STEM class for data on whether an assembly or class would be more efficient and more effective. 8. Redesign: Through research we found better methods of teaching and changed the education unit slightly. 9. Repeat: We could not repeat so we hoped our solution was valid.
Reflection: My group was pretty successful despite some flaws. I found my group's work ethic to be very strong. My group was working most of the time and never gave up even when I was absent. I also feel that my group had solid research on the topic. I would include my annotations but it turns out losing a science notebook is relatively easy so... Anyway I do think there were some areas that were flawed in my group. It's actually not that good to be sick and absent during a lot of the project so I'm going to try to make healthier food choices and sleep more. I learned much from this experience such as effects of weed and how it is implemented into the lives of children, I learned how to be a better leader in a group, and I learned that solving worldwide problems is hard, hence them still being here... However, I feel that my group did a great job and worked hard.