Inquiry Investigations in Year 6
The Inquiry Investigations unit for Term 3 is ‘I am an Engineer’, with the big question for the Year 6 cohort being ‘How do engineers solve a problem and shape our future?’
The students want to learn about what an engineer does, the varying types of engineers there are and how engineers design something using appropriate materials. They would also like to know how to design and test a product that will be useful, safe and structurally sound with a specific purpose.
As part of our ‘Tuning In’ stage of the learning process, the Year 6 students have been introduced to some simple design challenges that sample, on a small scale, what is involved with being an engineer. Such challenges followed the ‘design process’ and included being posed a problem to solve, creating a design using limited materials, making the product and testing it out. The students also discussed what types of engineers would be involved in these design solutions.
Our students have been researching the different types of engineers and learning about what they do, their roles and responsibilities, as well as relating their job to real life products. Some examples of engineers are civil, electrical, mechanical, chemical, computer, aeronautical, marine, industrial, biomedical, telecommunication, structural, manufactural, food, automotive, environmental, software, architectural, robotics and agricultural.
Here is what a few students found out about the types of engineers:
I now know there is a food engineer to make sure that food is safe and to be responsible for the astronaut’s food. (Rachel)
Civil engineers are responsible for roads and public and private infrastructure. (Janelle)
Automobile engineers are responsible for over 90% of the design of cars. (Sena)
Mining engineers work with geologists. (Kayden)
Software engineers program Artificial Intelligence and they do coding. (Boen)
Telecommunication engineers seem to have the highest income of the engineers. (Kingsley)
Robotic engineers create robots to do the jobs that are too dangerous for people. (Venya)
Marine engineers create and improve ships, and they work with mechanical engineers. (Josephine)
