Description: What if you could challenge your 11th graders to gain an understanding of the feats of engineering required to build high-rise buildings--and maybe even improve them? With this volume in the STEM Road Map Curriculum Series, you can! Construction Materials outlines a journey that will steer your students toward authentic problem solving while grounding them in integrated STEM disciplines. The series is designed to meet the growing need to infuse real-world learning into K-12 classrooms. This book is an interdisciplinary module that uses project- and problem-based learning. It gives students an inside look at the complex technologies and science behind the buildings they may take for granted. They'll examine micro- and macro-properties of construction materials, particularly those of high-rise buildings, through a unit divided into three sections that explore the following: 1. How high-rises are constructed, their influence on society, and how to communicate complex ideas clearly 2. The factors involved in the collapse of the World Trade Center's twin towers in New York, with a focus on how engineers use structural failures to learn more about the designed world 3. Construction innovations that will prompt your students to propose new ways to construct high-rises The STEM Road Map Curriculum Series is anchored in the Next Generation Science Standards, the Common Core State Standards, and the Framework for 21st Century Learning. In-depth and flexible, Construction Materials can be used as a whole unit or in part to meet the needs of districts, schools, and teachers who are charting a course toward an integrated STEM approach.
Brief description: Dr. Erin Peters-Burton is the Donna R. and David E. Sterling Endowed Professor in Science Education and Director of the Center for Social Equity through Science Education at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, USA. Dr. Peters-Burton's research agenda is based in social justice and she pursues projects that help students who feel excluded in science classes become more aware of the scientific enterprise and how scientific knowledge is generated. She is interested in the nexus of the nature of science, science teacher pedagogical content knowledge, and educational psychology. She is PI for an NSF-funded research project entitled, Fostering Student Computational Thinking with Self-Regulated Learning, which will develop an electronic notebook that prompts students to think computationally with self-regulated learning strategies while collecting analytics on student learning (SPIN; Science Practices Innovation Notebook). She has been co-PI for two NSF-funded grants, Opportunity Structures for Preparation and Inspiration in STEM (OSPrI) and Developing a Model of STEM-Focused Elementary Schools (eSTEM) that have empirically identified criteria for the design of successful inclusive STEM high schools and elementary schools. In addition, Dr. Peters-Burton is an editor of the STEM Road Map curriculum series published by NSTA Press, which is K-12 curriculum based on 5-week problem-based learning modules that integrate STEM, English language arts, and social studies concepts and practices. Dr. Peters-Burton is an Associate Editor of the journals, School Science and Mathematics and Journal of Science Teacher Education.