Design Squad Design Process
Tina Larzelere
PBS Kids accounts were retired in June 2021, and Design Squad no longer collects submissions as of January 2023. But old profile pages are still available to help inspire new ideas! You can create or remix designs and download them to your device. Have fun designing!
A 2022 summative evaluation conducted by Concord Evaluation Group found that the Toolkit was effective in familiarizing parents with the design process and helping them feel more confident supporting their children with engineering design projects. These effects were especially found among parents with less than a college degree. The Toolkit also helped kids become more familiar with the design process and increased their interest.
Fashioned for the Geek explores the world of television costume design, providing insight, analysis, and personal commentary. Showing appreciation to the hard working designers, and provide greater awareness to the important role a costume designer plays in a production.
In each episode of this show, teams of high school students are given a challenge by a real-world client (think create an automatic pancake-making machine for a diner or a cardboard furniture set for Ikea) and compete to design and build a winning solution. Your students will love picking a team to root for and watching as they work through the engineering design process, teamwork challenges, design roadblocks, and all.
All STEM in the Middle movie guides include before, during, and after questions to keep your students engaged and learning throughout the entire "movie day." This means you are free to catch up on grades, hold conferences, hang out with your students, or take a much-needed sick day.
There are a few things you need to do before you can start making. First, take a look at the Design Process Poster to learn about the steps in the design process. Then open Get Ready! so you can find space and materials around your house that you can use.
Get inspired! Check out the photo gallery below to see the types of things kids have made at NYSCI. You can also watch a couple of videos, using the links below, that show how kids are using the design process to solve real problems at home and at school. (The below links will direct you off of NYSCI.org).
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1811457. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
Government, industry, research, and education leaders all agree that a strong engineering workforce is an essential part of the future economy in the U.S. and across the globe. Despite the need for more engineers, people of Latin American origin are underrepresented in the field of engineering as well as in the engineering education pipeline. As reported in 2020, only 8 percent of U.S. adults in STEM careers were of Latin or Hispanic origins (Student Research Foundation, 2020). Even more alarming, in 2020 less than 4 percent of engineering bachelors degrees were awarded to African American/Black, Latina/Hispanic, and Native American women combined (De la Rosa, 2020). Clearly we need to create better opportunities to engage Latinx kids in engineering so that they do become a part of the STEM career pipeline. A traditional, one-size-fits-all approach to STEM education is missing the mark. That is where Design Squad Latinx comes in!
By encouraging kids to apply their own valuable existing funds of knowledge to solve meaningful problems, Design Squad Latinx supports kids in seeing themselves as the designs, engineers, and creators that they already are. To explore the full suite of resources, visit the Design Squad Latinx website.
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