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S T EM S P E C I A L Paul Tyler teaches sustainable engineering at Kirkhill Primary School in East Renfrewshire and is the co-founder of My Science Club. infants to figuring out the craft knife in the upper school, some skills need to be taught in isolation. For example, teaching children how to score, fold and glue cardboard so they can build intricate models allows themmore independence to be creative later on. It’s also important to teach a variety of joining techniques so children can make informed choices in their building. But it’s not just motor skills we’re developing. As projects become more detailed and building becomes more sophisticated, there is an increased need for accuracy. Core maths skills such as measuring accurately, and constructing shapes such as perfect squares and triangles using tools like set squares, protractors or pairs of compasses, can be reinforced in a real-life context. Once you’ve taught the core skills, you can give the children open-ended design briefs and allow them to design, and build, creative solutions. The design cycle All of the experiences I teach are based round the design cycle. We start by identifying a problem, for example: ‘Our desks in class get messy when we are working, and we often lose things.’ Then we have a discussion about possible fixes and do some research into what solutions already exist and how we might be able to improve them. During this discussion, pupils create a design brief with some ‘open-ended’ details. For example: ‘We need to build a desk tidy that is no bigger than 15cm square and has space for all the day-to-day tools we use in class.’ The next step is sketching out some ideas for designs, where the children draw a plan of their product as well as perspective projections from different sides. Then we move onto the iterative part, and pupils start to build parts of their final design, test them as they go, and make improvements as necessary. Often the improvements are structural; a join needs improving or a stronger grade of cardboard is required. Letting children discover where these improvements are needed is an important part of the process, even if it means the building takes longer. I encourage pupils to discuss ideas with each other, share solutions and ‘copy’ what they see others doing. As the teacher I try not to intervene if possible and when I do it’s almost always just asking questions. Cardboard projects The list of projects you can make with cardboard is almost limitless – basically if you can imagine it, you can build it. Over the last 15 months the children I teach have built: - Desk tidies - Marble runs - The set and props for the school show - A football stadium - Big Ben - Houses - Rockets - Cars and trucks - Optical illusions - Dioramas of book and film scenes - Pinball games Give it a go. This truly is STEM at its best. TP Inspiring resources The Low Resource Challenges from My Science Club are excellent for developing children’s engineering thinking skills. They need to visualise solutions, adapt and find creative solutions. Find them at tinyurl.com/ tp-MSClowresource The Makedo website has a gallery of amazing ideas to inspire children on what to make next: tinyurl.com/ tp-Makedo Autodesk Instructables is an open-source collection of amazing cardboard engineering projects that can be followed and adapted to inspire your builders. tinyurl.com/ tp-Instructables Check out the book Cardboard Box Engineering by Jonathan Adolph (Hachette), which has inspirational project ideas for all cardboard engineers. @Glazgow myscienceclub.com www.teachwire.net | 49