Module 2 Week 1

For Activity 2.1, I made a press-fit build kit representing different Catskill Watershed food web producers and consumers. My goal when designing the kit was to create an interactive model of the food web that students could use to act out different relationships within the trout food web, understand the scale of organisms next to others, and use as a display in the classroom.

I first researched the different plants and animals needed and then downloaded black and white drawings of each organism into the WeCreat software. After encasing each organism in circles, I decided to use the offset tool instead to create an organic shape around each organism. I found that smaller organisms required being grouped to provide enough space for the press-fit notches while still maintaining the proper scale.

I added notches at 3 mm and found that I had either not accounted for the kerf of the laser or my wood sheets were slightly thinner than 3 mm. I ran a test with a few different notch widths and found that .115 inches created the snuggest fit. After correcting all of the notches to .115 inches x .5 inches, I cut out the press-fit kit.

My first design used rectangular pieces with notches at inch intervals as the bases for consumers and producers. I wanted to create more height between to highlight the river ecosystem vs the land ecosystems, so I cut out smaller rectangles to use as posts. Aesthetically, I felt that the rectangles were builky and pulled attention away from the engraved scene. I cut small ovals that were less noticeable and went with this design instead.

I was still distracted by the rectangular bases and the series of unnused notches. I designed half-sphere bases in tinkercad and printed them at the Franklin Lab. I like this base design better but wonder if it would be too abstract for younger students and added second option of a laser cut river base kit and land base kit pieces using acrylic (blue for water and brown for land).

Reflection

**How your press-fit can be utilized in education? How other teachers could use it?

This kit would a be great teaching aid for the Trout in the Classroom project or for any group working on food webs, ecosystems, and identifying relationships between flora and fauna. It could also be used as an assessment tool to look for understanding either through a static display or a stop-motion animation created by students. I am interested in taking it further next year as an opportunity for digital fabrication with students in my third grade class to have them design their own press fit kits.

What has been your experience using Project Based Learning / Problem based learning in the past? What were the main challenges? How DF can support Project Based Learning / Problem Based learning?

Working in a project based school for almost ten years and in project based settings in museums before that has given me a solid foundation in Project Based Learning. A challenge that comes up for me when designing curricula is identifying aspects of a lesson or project that do not provide learning and balancing that editing process with student interests that are guiding the project. I have found that DF offers a more polished output than can often be accomplished by hand while still supporting the critical thinking of the iterative design process. It can be a great tool for supporting Universal Design for Learning framework and to help scaffold projects to help kids stay engaged through the entire project.

**When organizing DF activities with kids, What are the aspects that you think should be prepared beforehand? What aspects can be improvised?

I think it depends on the age and experience of the group, the learning goals of the lesson, and the time available for the lesson. As a science educator, I will usually have to allot time to research or a science learning goal which takes away from time that I can spend on the DF portion of the project. In this space, I would prepare whatever did not serve the learning goals while still leaving space for individualization. In one of my maker electives or afterschool classes, I do not prep anything for students other than project prompts to get them all working with the materials that I want to highlight.