This flashcard game is a fun learning tool for elementary school children that are beginning to learn about engineering and technology.
Many children (and some adults) believe that the term “technology” is only reserved for things that are high-tech or electric. If you ask children to give you examples of technologies, they will often come back with a list of items limited to things like cell phones, iPods, TVs, and cars.
But the definition is much broader than that. This game uses flashcards to teach children that a technology is anything designed by human beings to help solve a problem or meet a need. This means that items such as cups, pencils, shoes, and even processes such as an assembly line, are just as much technologies as the high-tech examples. Things that are not technologies are items that are created by nature, such as trees, dirt, tomatoes, and waterfalls.
This game may be used on its own, in conjunction with the in-school elementary engineering curriculum Engineering is Elementary, or in conjunction with the out-of-school time elementary engineering curriculum Engineering Adventures.
Find out more by visiting eie.org or engineeringadventures.org.
Produced by the Engineering is Elementary Team
Developed by Sean Fitzgerald and Tarrant Cutler
Illustrated by Anya Jacobs