This lesson will introduce students to the invention cycle, a simple yet effective way to help guide students during the invention process. Students will begin the lesson by completing a 15-minute project using little Bits. At the end of the project, students will have used three of their chosen invention bits and will know that invention they were able to create. The next step in the process is to present their work at a school science fair, demonstrating their invention’s ability to solve a problem or demonstrate the usefulness of their creation.
After the project, you will get students thinking about how they solved the problem or how their invention could be applied to solve a future problem. You will then allow them to select one or two more invention ideas to present at your science fair. If you want to get students thinking more about the topic, you will put their chosen invention into categories; for instance, animals. Then, you will give them an outline of the problem in terms of space, time, and money. After completing this part of the activity, you will encourage them to complete one of the following tasks:
In the last part of the activity, you will have them complete a story about their invention cycle. Here, they will describe the steps they took to complete the activity, including descriptions of their quick invention idea, the research they did to find ideas, and finally the steps they took to implement their invention. Although you might think that the story is dry, as it sounds like a task for a child to relate, you will be surprised at how engaging these short stories can be. In addition, you can then build on their stories by having them write a paper related to their stories; the better they write, the better their presentations and experiments will be, because the more involved they are in the story, the more they will expand their imagination and creativity.