4. Field Activity: Digital Fabrication for kids

This week I worked on making my lesson plan called “Design Challenge: Make a 3D printed irregular object with a specific volume.”

Process

The idea for this lesson plan came from a collaboration between myself and a 5th grade math teacher who needed help making irregular volume more interesting and relatable for her students. Irregular volume is an abstract concept which can be very difficult for 5th grade students. The idea was to make irregular volume, measuring, and estimation more concrete by using physical objects and design.

Students begin by using the pre-made 3D printed objects to learn to measure volume by the water displacement method. These objects are 1cm^3, 6 cm^3, and 12 cm^3. They then use these objects to estimate the volume of their own designs in TinkerCad. To test their estimations, they 3D print their original designs and measure the volume of them using water displacement. Students are given the opportunity to iterate their designs to create a more accurate volume.

The entire lesson plan can be found HERE https://www.scopesdf.org/scopesdf_lesson/design-challenge-make-a-3d-printed-irregular-object-with-a-specific-volume/