LEGO Engineering

LEGO Engineering: Engineering From Kindergarten to College

Wed., Oct 23rd, 7:30 pm

A group of us at Tufts' Center for Engineering Education Outreach have spent the last 15 years working with teachers, schools, industry, and government to make engineering an integral part of every child's education. The desire to build is part of every childhood and can be used as a powerful motivator to teach math, science, and even literacy skills. The results of our work have led to the technology/engineering standard in K-12 education in Massachusetts as well as engineering programs in schools around the world. In this particular talk I am going to present the work we do with LEGO in developing ROBOLAB; an educational toolkit developed at Tufts with the support of National Instruments and LEGO. We begin with children learning to build sturdy structures in kindergarten, fractions and decimal numbers in the 1st grade, graphing and modeling in 3rd grade, and end with college students learning robotics, electronics, and controls. I will spend the bulk of the talk showing how parents, teachers, and engineering undergraduates work together to show children the importance of learning math and science. In reality, I will spend most of the time showing neat inventions of students from kindergarten to college. Kids are welcome to bring their parents.

Directions:
From Palmer Square (across from main entrance to the central campus) continue east on Nassau Street. Go through traffic light at Washington Road and past St. Paul's Roman Catholic church and school. At second light, take right on Olden Street. The Computer Science Building will be right. (If you enter through the Friend Center, take the first left and then take the first right and Rm 104 is right there. If you enter through the CS Bldg., enter the building's main entrance and stay to the left, the auditorium is straigh ahead.)