Putting engineering on the table: a STEAM activity of reverse engineering and mathematics

• Autor(a) principal: Rodrigues-Silva, Jefferson
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Outros Autores: Silva-Hormazábal, Marcela, Alsina, Ángel
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Pesquisa e Debate em Educação (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.ufjf.br/index.php/RPDE/article/view/38877
• topic: Engenharia reversa; Solução de problemas; Sustentabilidade; Educação STEAM; Ensino fundamental; Ingeniería reversa; Sostenibilidad; Educación STEAM; Educación Primaria; Resolución de problemas; Reverse engineering; Problem solving; Sustainability; STEAM education; Primary education

Reverse engineering is explored as a didactic strategy for interdisciplinary between engineering and mathematics in primary education. In the first part, we theoretically scaffold STEAM education and Design-Based Learning (DBL) in the sense of reverse engineering. In the second part, we present a STEAM activity plan in which students do reverse engineering of a table and then select materials from a catalogue with contradictory demands of dimensions, price and sustainability. The description of this activity is accompanied by the results of its implementation with 23 students from a Spanish school. The activity is shown to be pedagogically powerful in terms of learning mathematics and engineering. Its simplicity and reproducibility (we provide a worksheet in an editable format) help teachers to understand that engineering is not limited to complex and costly approaches.