Keva planks and BiTiRi observations - Destiny

     This past week I observed a couple of families at the exhibits Keva planks and Build it, Test it, Race it on the second floor.

     First, at Keva planks there were a couple of kids, possibly brothers, around the age of six and eight playing and building simple towers. I believe they were using some of the engineering practices. First, based on pure observation and no verbal clarification I could see them communicating and working as a team because they were talking to each other and pointing at each other's towers. I believe they even started building their towers together to create a sort of city. I saw them also work on innovating processes, methods, and designs when they decided to build with the planks on their side to make the towers taller quicker. Other than that there is no way to know if the boys were using any other practices unless I talked to them. This observation was purely observational. I believe all of these practices are possible at this exhibit because it is so full of possibilities with few limitations. This would consist of people having or developing a specific plan for their building and figuring out how to make that possible with the materials given. They could make small versions and prototype first or make decisions based on their previous engagement to influence their strategy. This way they would be considering problems, making trade-offs, and applying math and science knowledge to their problem-solving.

    Next, on BiTiRi I interacted with three kids all about eleven years old. I started cleaning up car parts and they were beginning the building process. At first two of them had about the same car so I asked the third kid if she wanted a long, medium, or short car? She responded with short, so we made a mini car. One of the boys watched and then suggested they all make different sized cars so they could race to see which is best. I asked each of them which they thought would be the fastest. Two said the smallest and one said the largest one. They raced and saw that the largest won. After that I watched them design three different long cars and race them again. These kids used most of the practices visibly. especially making evidence-based decisions because they saw the longest car won so they only used long cars after that. They also developed processes to solve problems when they strategically tested different lengths of cars.