Summer SAVY Session 6, Day 4, Intro to Chemical Engineering (Rylander)
We are continuing to work our way through the Engineering Design Process and applying our learning to chemical engineering of Play Dough. Today we explored the ingredient ratios in our playdough process and learned to improve our current method of creation by applying our knowledge of ratios and how materials interact with one another. We also explored the particle nature of matter as we talked about the solids and liquids in our recipe and how they change when combined with one another.
We applied our learning to create an improved play dough recipe with greater pliability and texture utilizing both a usage and texture test to analyze our final product. Some key takeaways from today include: engineers use a series of steps, called the engineering design process, to improve and design technologies; a process is a kind of technology; adding or subtracting small amounts of materials can have a significant effect on the results of a process.
Discussion questions about today’s learning could include:
- What did you do to improve your play dough process?
- What was the most challenging part of today’s learning?
- Is there any other way the steps in the process could be rearranged, and what effect might that have on the final product?