BP Challenges and the curriculum

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• Organising and running Challenges
• BP Challenge Resources

BP Challenges have a place in the wider curriculum of a school. They can provide a context for developing a wide range of skills, attitudes and personal attributes; in particular, BP Challenges can:

• simulate aspects of problem solving in the 'adult world': working to constraints of materials, time, knowledge, technology, money, etc.; producing the solution under pressure; selecting the best design; refining the design; working as a team; utilising individual's talents effectively; 'marketing' an idea or product to others and to possible clients; producing a design to meet specifications, etc.
• give a greater understanding of the need to develop and refine a design and practise the skills required
• assist the development of important attitudes and personal attributes, such as: setting goals, focusing on results, time management, recognising priorities, reflective problem solving, necessity for research, optimism that things will work, team and social skills, tolerance of others, ability to work under pressure (and cope with frustration!), risk taking, independence, clarity of thought, taking responsibility for actions and decisions, able to turn 'failures' into successall things a super-person needs to have!

Challenges and your curriculum goals

Individual Challenges can easily be incorporated into your class programme. Because they involve a team approach, are great fun and encourage students to take control of the development process, there is usually high student motivation. They make great starting points!

You could select Challenges from the Library section which are appropriate to your current topic goals, or you could adapt them or make up your own (see the section 'Developing new Challenges').

To use Challenges effectively it is important to identify goals you want to achieve. A team problem-solving approach provides several opportunities to make learning more effective and, in particular, an opportunity to foster cooperative learning.

Identify specific goals you want your students to achieve in a group problem-solving situation, especially one structured with constraints and specified performance goals as in a Challenge. Some of the goals that Challenges could be used to attain are:

• identify and focus on problem goals, evaluating the processes and steps for their contribution towards achieving the goals
• recognise similarities to previously experienced problems and draw on the skills and knowledge gained from that (and be aware that it could also limit them looking for new solutions)
• recognise the implications of constraints of rules, time, materials, tools, etc., so viable solutions can be quickly recognised
• use a problem-solving 'organiser' (a design process) intelligently to provide a framework for efficiently developing a 'solution'
• transfer existing skills and knowledge to a new situation, which allows them to practise them further and enhance recall and understanding
• locate and select useful information related to the problem
• manage time and resources within the constraints imposed to reach a viable solution
• gain skills in identifying and appreciating the various roles of individuals in a group (those with ideas, who manage procedures and materials, who encourage others, are negotiators, researchers, designers, assessors, etc.), how they can take different roles in different situations, and which roles best suit them
• become aware of their individual learning modes
• be receptive to new ideas from others and negotiate how their own and others ideas will be developed
• learn to work in a team and to experience the synergy arising from effective team work
• rely on each other and ensure each member of the team plays their part
• be supportive and encouraging of each other because, when 'brainstorming' and thinking of 'what if' situations, they need to be as creative as possible, which means seemingly 'impossible' ideas as well as 'sensible' ideas have to be generated; this level of risk-taking is essential if the best ideas are to arise
• develop more complex thinking skills, especially as they have to consider several variables simultaneously.

As the teacher you will need to have relevant sources of information available (summaries of basic information are included in the Challenge Notes section).

Encourage teams to record the development of their design, especially performance data. This encourages the development of ideas, especially if they record why a particular design didn't work. This develops the essential attitude of a willingness to learn from mistakes, helps free them from fear of making mistakes, and gives them the self-confidence required to 'have a go'.

Challenges encourage the transfer of skills and knowledge to new situations. Remind your students of the ideas and skills they already have which will be useful to the problem (this is not telling them the solutions!) and after the BP Challenge event, identify the successful ideas to reinforce their achievement and to nurture confidence. The inability to transfer skills and knowledge to new situations is a common problem, especially between curriculum areas.

More authenticity in your Challenges

BP Challenges deliberately use cheap, simple and readily obtained materials because problem solving skills do not need to be practised in a high-technology or expensive environment. However, a weakness in this approach is that student perceptions could be limited to this situation and they may not develop knowledge of the properties and applications of materials used in similar 'adult world' contexts. Consequently, you may wish to challenge your students to learn more about some aspects of technology by widening the range of materials or by requiring them to include a wider range of functions in a Challenge; for example:

Materials: In place of cardboard use plastic sheets of various types, from 1–2 mm styrene sheet to the 'corrugated cardboard' type plastic sheet commonly used for notices. These can still be cut by snips and can be easily folded and taped or glued (using a hot glue gun), but their greater rigidity provides a greater range of solutions. In-class Challenges could include water and safe chemicals (e.g. 'After 30 seconds your device is to drop 10 g of baking soda into a container containing 80 ml of vinegar')

Fastenings: Sticky tape is generally specified because of its low cost, but you may prefer to use hot-glue guns and staplers for some Challenges. (The use of cyanoacrylate 'wonder glues' is not recommended because of their ability to bond flesh and the consequent potential for injury in the heat of competition.)

Electric and electronic circuits: Adding a simple circuit, with battery, lamp and switch, is a fun way of teaching simple circuitry and you could add this requirement to many Challenges (remember to add to the materials list: enamelled copper wire and sandpaper (or plastic coated wire), battery, lamp, aluminium foil). For example: include a 'leaning indicator' on the tower Challenges, or on one of the crane Challenges, where the light goes on (or off) when the tower leans past a specified angle (include a marble or Plasticine for a weight); add a 'strain indicator' to a bridge or stretcher, where a light comes on at a specified sag point. You could replace the light with a small buzzer. (These would require modifying those Challenges to include testing to the 'triggering point'.)

Modifying existing BP Challenges

You don't need to invent new Challenges to achieve specific learning goals, just change the conditions, materials or tasks. For example:

The various towers: Knowledge of electric circuits are an important outcome in science and technology. Specify that a lamp must be mounted on the tower and add a battery and enamelled wire (it's cheap and rigid, but remember to add sandpaper to remove the enamel). You could go further and ask that the lamp flash if the tower is bumped, or you may want to include a few electronic components and demand the making of a 'flasher' unit.

The 'Rubber band racer' type of event provides opportunities for a wide range of other tasks. You could specify that it must be the car achieving fastest acceleration over 1m (which will pose interesting problems in measuring it!); or that it must carry a lamp which must remain glowing over the entire race; or have a siren circuit which must sound when it stops; or must stop after travelling exactly 2.5m (being allowed a ±5cm stopping zone); etc.

The 'Water tower' Challenge allows other challenging opportunities, such as having a small water turbine which must raise a given weight as high as possible on the quantity of water given. You would of course have to provide PVC tubing and fittings, the string and Lego® parts or straws and pins used to lift the weight, and the container to collect the 'used' water. This could then be related to rope water pumps used in several cultures.

Even very simple Challenges such as the 'Rescue 111' challenge can have interesting additions, such as requiring that the pole also form a sound emanating device, requiring participants to call up it or make sound producing devices. A sound level meter at a standard distance could be used to measure effectiveness.

Warning! Before setting Challenges be sure to test the components on which the success of that BP Challenge depends, in particular those providing any motive power such as balloons, rubber bands and batteries.