The Engineering Pathway announces the first winners of our new Premier Curriculum Award for K-12 Engineering.

Congratulations to
Susan Powers and Jan DeWaters of Clarkson University, for their original middle school curricular unit entitled, Energy Systems and Solutions.

In this unit, students explore energy production and consumption issues from everyday life, learning about our nation’s energy situation and basic energy and physics concepts. Through engaging activities and the engineering problem solving approach, students apply what they’ve learned to a real-life project that reduces fossil fuel use. The curriculum is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant nos. DUE-0428127 and DGE-0338216, from the NSF GK-12 and Distinguished Teaching Scholars programs.

Congratulations also to our top finalists:

Terry Carter for his seventh-grade Laser Light Properties: Protecting the Mummified Troll! unit.

Terry is a technology and math middle school teacher who created this curriculum through the Vanderbilt University Research Experiences for Teachers Program in Nashville, TN.

Travis M. Doll for his eighth-grade Sound Booth Construction activity. Travis is a graduate student in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department who created this activity as part of Drexel University’s NSF GK-12 Program, in Philadelphia, PA.

If you have K-12 engineering lessons, activities or curricular units that are not yet online, you can publish them in the TeachEngineering digital library. All TeachEngineering curricula are automatically cataloged on the Engineering Pathway.

TeachEngineering curricula must be complete documents providing full instructions for teaching activities, lessons or curricular units, and a more extensive review process is required.

Today in History - May 22, 1906 - Wright brothers patent improvements to “flying machine”. From the patent: Our invention relates to that class of fly ing machines in which the weight is sustained by the reactions resulting when one or more aeroplanes are moved through the air edge-wise at a small angle of incidence, either by the application of mechanical power or by the utilization of the force of gravity. The objects of our invention are to provide means for maintaining or restoring the equilibrium or lateral balance of the apparatus, to provide means for guiding the machine both vertically and horizontally, and to provide a structure combining lightness, strength, convenience of construction, and certain other advantages which will hereinafter appear.

Years earlier, on December 17, 1903, the Wright Flyer stayed aloft for 12 seconds and covered 120 feet. Over the next few years, the Wright brothers developed more capable airplanes and grabbed the world’s attention in their European and American flights in 1908.

December 17, 2003 marked 100 years of flight, starting with the first successful Kitty Hawk flight. The Wright brothers were in the spotlight, while their sister, Katharine Wright, remained in shadow. Katharine, a teacher who graduated from Oberlin College, was the only one of the three to graduate from college and is reported to have scored very high in algebra exams in high school. She is credited with being the Wright brothers’ business manager and publicist. Perhaps she was one of the first teachers to bring aviation ideas into the classroom?

Aviation, and more recently space travel, continues to inspire awe and inspire. The National Academy of Engineering places the invention of the airplane as one of the top modern mileposts: Greatest Engineering Achievements of the 20th Century. Women were there from the beginning; discover the 100 most influential women in aviation and aerospace on this timeline.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on “100 Years of Flight“, as well as on aviation and aeronautic engineering. For related curricula, visit the Aeronautical Engineering Education community.

Today in History - May 13, 1958 - Velcro® trademark is registered for a fabric hook and loop fastener.

The way George de Mestral, a Swiss mountaineer, tells the story, he was hiking with his dog in 1948 and was frustrated to see all of these burrs covering them both when he returned home. He says he was fascinated by how tough they were to take off and looked at them in a microscope. He saw that they had small hooks that enabled the seed-bearing burr to cling effectively to the small fabric loops on his pants. This was an “aha” moment and he was inspired to design a fastener using the same concept. He called  his invention ‘velcro’, combining the French words velour (velvet) and crochet (hook). He predicted: “It will rival the zipper in its ability to fasten.”

The idea was not an immediate success and met with derision by some. He persevered and worked with a  weaver from a textile plant in France to develop a nylon type fabric that had the hook and loop fastener concept, patented it in 1955 and trademarked it in 1958. A U.S. patent was filed on May 9, 1958 and awarded on Nov. 21, 1961. The original Velcro® company was formed in 1952 to manufacture this invention and now Velcro® is a multi-million dollar industry.

One interesting note on trademarks: if it becomes a commonly used generic word, then the trademark can be invalidated. Thus Velcro International emphasizes: “Velcro is the name of our companies and is a registered trademark for our products,” the highly protective company says. “It is not the generic name of the product that… is generically known as ‘hook-and-loop fastener’ or ‘touch fasteners’.”

Velcro® is a wonderful example of biologically-inspired design, or biomimicry.

Also on this day, the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (to later merge with another society to become the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, IEEE) is founded.

For more information see the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on biomimetic design and trademarks and patents. For related curricular resources, visit the Materials Engineering Education, Materials Engineering Education and the Chemical Engineering Education community sites.

Have you developed courseware - interactive websites, simulations, tutorials, case studies, software environments or tools - designed to enhance engineering education? We want to see it! Submissions due July 17, 2009.

The Premier Award for Excellence in Engineering Education Courseware, hosted by the Engineering Pathway, is open to a wide range of submissions of high-quality, engaging, non-commercial learning innovations designed to enhance engineering education. Submissions for 2009 are due by July 17, 2009, and the Premier Courseware of 2009 will be announced at the Frontiers In Education Conference to be held October 18-21 in San Antonio, Texas. More details on the Premier Award and current and previous winners can be found on the Engineering Pathway at: http://www.engineeringpathway.org/premier/.

Check out our prior Premier Award winners. The 2008 Premier Award for Excellence in Engineering Education Courseware was awarded to Richard Anderson, Ruth Anderson, Natalie Linnell, Craig Prince and members of the development team from the University of Washington for Classroom Presenter.

Classroom Presenter is a Tablet PC-based interaction system that supports the sharing of digital ink on slides between instructors and students. Classroom Presenter enables the flexible delivery of lecture content and can increase student engagement and understanding of material. When used as a presentation tool, Classroom Presenter allows the integration of digital ink and electronic slides, making it possible to combine the advantages of whiteboard style and slide-based presentation. The ability to link the instructor and student devices, and to send information back and forth provides a mechanism for introducing active learning into the classroom and creates additional feedback channels.

Richard Anderson is a professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington and also serves as Associate Chair of educational programs. He won the 2007 UW Faculty Innovator for Teaching Award. Ruth Anderson teaches Computer Science at the University of Washington.  Natalie Linnell and Craig Prince are both PhD students at University of Washington working on educational technology with Richard Anderson.

The Engineering Pathway (www.engineeringpathway.org) is a portal to high-quality teaching and learning resources in applied science and math, engineering, computer science/information technology and engineering technology, for use by K-12 and university educators and students. Engineering Pathway is the engineering education “wing” of the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) at www.nsdl.org.

The Engineering Pathway also hosts Engineering Education communities in all ABET-accredited computing and engineering disciplines as well as emerging new interdisciplinary communities.

Today in History - April 26, 1986 - The Chernobyl nuclear plant exploded in the Ukraine and parts of Belarus, Russia; it was the world’s worst civil nuclear catastrophe. The steam explosion and fire sent a cloud of radioactive dust over much of Europe, releasing at least five percent of the radioactive core of the reactor. The accident was a result of flaws in the reactor design and inadequately trained personnel. The safety systems had actually been turned off during a testing operation and an uncontrollable power surge was allowed to occur. As the Soviet design had no external containment, there was no final barrier to contain radioactive material once the steam explosions started. These design and training flaws are attributed to lax nuclear safety standards in the former Soviet Union. Over thirty  people, mostly emergency workers and children, were killed soon after the explosion.

On May 2-4 approximately 160,000 people were evacuated from the area around the plant operator’s town of Pripyat. Eventually an additional 210,000 people resetled into less contaminated areas. The long term environmental and health effects are still being measured.  The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation has  issued several reports and has conducted extensive longitudinal studies on the Chernobyl accident.  Although there is some dispute as to exactly how may long-term radiation-related deaths occurred, no one questions that there were catastrophic social and economic consequences, with costs in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on Chernobyl and nuclear energy and safety or view our Nuclear Engineering Education and Engineeering Ethics community sites. Readers may be interested in the Alsos digital library on nuclear issues and their resources on Chernobyl as well.