Knowing Engineering Design

Abstract

In this last chapter of Part I, I provide an account of children’s learning during this engineering design unit. Descriptions of children’s associations with engineering and their approach to design problems before and toward the end of “Engineering for Children: Structures” allow readers to evaluate where the children started and to what extent they developed. I enhance these descriptions by providing further accounts of students’ understandings as evidenced by their glossaries, their conversations toward the end of the unit, and their competencies to negotiate meanings and courses of action in the context of their ongoing work.