December 2013

VARIABLES
Space Aliens Try to Engineer a Way Home

When two young space aliens—Bells and Mitch—crash-land on Earth, they have to figure out a way to get back home to the planet of Exergy. They discover dandelions near their crash site and observe the dandelions’ life cycle. This knowledge helps them to launch their spaceship and head back home. Bells and Mitch are the creation of engineering professors Emily Hunt and Michelle Pantoya, who ventured into writing children’s books as a way to teach young readers about their profession.

When Hunt and Pantoya started teaching their kids to read, they quickly learned that young children have no concept of what engineers do. They also discovered that there is a lack of appropriate reading material to explain it. “When you typically ask young kids what an engineer does, they usually say, ‘drive a train,’” says Pantoya, a mechanical engineering professor at Texas Tech University in Lubbock.

The pair designed a solution to their problem by developing their own books. In 2010, they independently published their first picture book—Engineering Elephants—to introduce beginning readers (K–2) to science, technology, engineering, and math concepts and vocabulary words.

HUNT

The book quickly drew the interest of Texas Tech University Press editors, who wanted Hunt and Pantoya to create a series of books for older elementary school students. Designing Dandelions is their most recent book and aims to teach students that engineering involves learning from failures to design something better. The Engineering Everything adventure book series will feature different storylines and nonhuman characters to ensure that any child—no matter their cultural background, ethnicity, or gender—can relate to the characters.

To craft the appropriate content, Hunt and Pantoya met with teachers and curriculum development specialists. They wanted to make sure that the books not only introduced engineering, but also touched on the concepts and learning standards that teachers need to address in the classroom. “The input of individual teachers was the most valuable input that we received,” says Hunt, who is director and associate professor of mechanical engineering at West Texas A&M University in Canyon. “They, more than anyone, understand the pulse of the classroom and what kids will like.”

The authors also attended Engineering is Elementary program workshops to learn how teachers are instructed to teach engineering. The program emphasizes that failure is an inherent part of the engineering design process, says Pantoya, and that there shouldn’t be a stigma associated with failure. It’s a message that Designing Dandelions emphasizes.

PANTOYA

“Kids are often drawn away from engineering because they are exposed to these design challenges, and if their design doesn’t work initially they think they can’t be engineers,” says Pantoya. “We are trying to reverse that misconception. In engineering, we are always trying to improve upon what was done before.”