WIESBADEN, Germany -- Considered one of the seven wonders of the modern world by the American Society of Civil Engineers, it makes sense two engineers with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Europe District used the Panama Canal as a teaching point during STEM Week at Aukamm Elementary School here.
STEM is short for science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and the Corps partners with Department of Defense Education Activity schools worldwide to leverage its engineering and scientific expertise to build a competitive U.S. workforce in scientific or technological fields.
Special Projects engineers Spenser Ruvalcaba and Robert Milan started their presentation by explaining what an engineer does -- "We build things!" Next they listed construction examples, including the Panama Canal, and then showed two short videos on how a lock system enables the canal to link the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and describing Archimedes' principle, a scientific law that explains why things sink or float -- the physical law of buoyancy -- a buoyant force on a submerged object is equal to the weight of the fluid that is displaced by the object.
"Our goal today is to build a boat that will carry cargo," Milan said while explaining the task, which stressed not only engineering but team work as well. The students then decided who would do what, such as captain, builder and loader.
Using 1 meter of aluminum foil, six Popsicle sticks and 20 minutes for design, collaboration and boat construction, the engineers challenged the elementary students to build a barge that can hold six golf balls and stay afloat, Milan said. The students tested their designs in a 45-gallon storage tote that represented the lock system, with the loader strategically placing the golf balls.
A third-grade team won. Their design, a flat surface and small sides, held 89 balls.
"They won because their barge had the largest surface area while still fitting inside the lock," Milan said.
"The older children were stifled by creativity," Ruvalcaba said. "They were overthinking the problem and often needed a bigger base to provide space for golf balls. The Popsicle sticks weren't necessary -- they just added weight and perpetuated overdesign."
Despite winning or losing, the students all seemed to learn from the activity.
Fifth-grader Allyson Miranda said, "I think we did pretty well. Our design held 43 balls."
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