Fast forward to the summer of 2008…Your entire class has just won tickets and transportation to the Championship Soccer Game for the Olympic gold medal in Beijing! You will be heading to China in a few weeks to watch the game, but first you decide to do a bit of research about the Olympics. Does anyone know any history about the Olympics? By searching on the web, you would learn that the modern Olympic Games began in 1896 and are based on the Olympic Games of the Ancient Greeks. In the Ancient Olympics, athletes from different cities in Greece competed against one another in honor of the Gods whom they believed to reside on Mt. Olympia.

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In modern times, the Olympic Games are world-wide competitions which have been split into the Summer and Winter Games and hosted by cities all over the world. Each host city has to do a lot of work in order to prepare for all of the athletes and spectators. Often, many new buildings must be built to accommodate all the different events. In your search on the internet, you would come across a couple of websites that show different Olympic venues from all around the world. Can anyone name some types of buildings and arenas that are necessary for the Olympics? (Answer: different arenas, stands for the crowd, the Olympic Village, where the athletes and coaches live) How about anything specifically for the Summer Games? (Answer: swimming pools, soccer fields, softball diamonds, etc.) What about the Winter Games? (Answer: a bobsled track, ice rink, ski slopes, etc.) Many of the buildings are very technically advanced and have very cool features, allowing the host country to showcase their engineering and architectural abilities.

Does anyone know what engineering is? Let's come up with a class definition of what engineering is and what engineers do. Engineering is defined as inventing and building things for the benefit of society. So, engineers work in many different fields to develop and change products to improve the lives of people. As they are creating such products, engineers use the engineering design process to develop their ideas.

The engineering design process involves six steps. The idea behind the process is such that once the first design is built, the product can be further improved by restarting the process. The steps in the design process are listed below. (Note: teachers may use the attached Design Process Overhead.)

Design Process Steps

1. Find the need
2. Define the problem
3. Come up with ideas (inventions)
4. Select the most promising design
5. Plan and manage the project
6. Build the design

Brainstorming is a very important part of the design process. Engineers work cooperatively and come up with several ideas to find the best solution to the problem at hand. Some guidelines for brainstorming are: (Note: teachers may use the Brainstorming Guidelines as a handout or overhead.)

• Provide only positive comments (no negative comments are allowed)
• Encourage wild ideas
• Write all ideas on the board
• Stay focused on topic
• Hold only one conversation at a time
• Build on the ideas of others

Commonly in engineering, the best solution is not the most obvious, so engineers must think "outside the box." Can someone explain to the class what "thinking outside the box" means? That's right! It means thinking of a creative approach to the problem, by looking at the problem from a new angle — or, tackling the problem in a new way. Engineers spend a lot of time refining and improving already existing products, so they must be open to new ideas.

In addition to learning HOW to solve problems, engineers need to learn WHERE to search for answers. It is very important for engineers to examine products and projects from the past, so they can learn from failures and build on successes.

Let's take some time to think about all the things in your daily life that must have been designed by an engineer. Buildings are designed by civil or architectural engineers. What other kinds of engineers are there? Grab a partner and make a list of 10 things that you come across everyday that were designed by an engineer. Now that you have your list…can you think of what type of engineer would be involved in designing each one? Or, what would a person have to know a lot about to design each thing on your list?

Along those lines, what kind of engineers would be involved in designing and building an Olympic stadium? Here is a picture of a stadium. [Show the attached Stadium Transparency or another photo of a local stadium.] Just by looking at the picture, we can see all the different aspects of a stadium. There are several examples of the need for different types of engineers to build a stadium. Structural engineers make sure the structure is strong. Electrical engineers design and build the lighting and scoreboard, while civil engineers design the road system and parking lot for the stadium. Acoustical engineers are in charge of the enormous sound system. Mechanical engineers ensure the stadium has running water and air conditioning or heating, while sanitary engineers work on plumbing for the bathrooms.

Look back over your list of items you thought of and see if you can add more about what types of engineers designed or built them. There are many different types of engineers, and they are involved with a wide range of activities and projects. Chemical engineers for example, work closely with the medical industry to create new drugs to treat diseases, such as cancer. An environmental engineer might spend most of their time analyzing how birds are impacted by pollution or how to get clean water to your community.

There are several different types of engineers, and they all vary in their specialties. Some examples include: mechanical, electrical, civil, environmental, biomedical, aerospace and chemical engineers. Here are some pictures and photographs of products that were designed and built by engineers. [hold up some pictures/photographs of engineered products that might interest the students. Try to be creative and include things that you may not think as engineered things at first, such as water systems, aspirin, appliances, etc. Even cell phones and iPods will surprise students.] You will be amazed to learn that just about everything had an engineer involved at some point. How do you think these things were created? Do you think one person designed each one? Most likely these items were not created by just one person. It takes several different engineers working together to create a final product.

Just as building an Olympic Stadium requires several types of engineers, it takes many different kinds of engineers to design and build things — a car, for example. Mechanical engineers design the parts, electrical engineers design the electrical system, and chemical engineers help create the fuel. It takes all of these people to build a car, which shows us that teamwork is a major part of engineering.

Let's think about what we have learned in this lesson. Remember, engineering is about inventing and building things for the benefit of society. What do you think engineers do then? Do they just build buildings? As we learned when discussing the Olympic Stadium, engineers do a lot of things other than build buildings and bridges. Engineers work in many different fields to develop and change products to improve the lives of people. Do you think engineers have to be creative? Yes, engineers have to be creative in problem solving and think past the obvious solution - they have to "think outside the box." Being creative is especially important for brainstorming, the third step of the engineering design process. While brainstorming new ideas, is it important for engineers to study history? It is necessary for engineers to understand what has been done in the past to come up with the best solution for the future. Engineers also need to understand the mistakes of the past to ensure that we do not repeat them in the future.

In this lesson, we learned about engineering problem-solving techniques such as the engineering design process and brainstorming. We also learned that it can be helpful to look at past examples, like the columns of the Greek Parthenon, to help guide our designs of today. We know that some shapes are stronger than others, making them more useful in designing buildings and other structures. While thinking about the stadium and reviewing the lists of everyday engineered items, we came to understand that engineers do much more than design buildings and bridges. There are all different kinds of engineering, and each engineer plays a different role in the creation of products. We discovered that teamwork is important, and it is rare for an engineer to build something all on her or his own. In the next lesson, as we head to China for the Gold Medal championship soccer game, we will learn about different modes of transport - over land and sea!

Have a student pick a type of engineer and write a list of five things that engineer would design or create.

Have the students draw a picture that is representative of their favorite type of engineering.

Have each student pick their favorite Olympic event and list the types of engineers that may be involved (i.e., in building the stadium, designing the equipment, etc.).

Have students find one or more things in their house that were not discussed in class that they think are engineered. See how many different things the class can come up with collectively.