Technology and the Diversity of Limits

Have students work alone to answer the following questions. Once they record their answers, you might have them discuss the answers in their teams or as a class.

1. How was your list of three properties similar to your teammates’ lists? How was your list different?

   Students will have different answers depending on the lists the team members made. This question helps students begin thinking about the idea that important qualities or properties likely differ from one person to another. As students get further into technological design, they will need to consider the differences among people.

2. Would the three most important properties on your list have been the same if you were buying a television? Why or why not?

   It is likely that students will say the properties would be different for a television. When buying paper towels, a person may consider softness, absorbency, and cost as the most important factors, but when buying a television, the person may consider properties such as size, picture quality, and cost. Accept all answers at this point in the instructional sequence. One purpose of the Engage phase of the 5E Instructional Model is to find out what students know or think they know about a concept. Consider whether students realize that the important properties of a product depend on the product. Students will come back to this concept later in the chapter.

3. Write your best ideas about this statement:

   Paper towels are a technology.

   In the “Doing Technology” chapter, students learned that a technology is something that helps a human solve problems by extending human limits. By this definition, students should realize that paper towels are a technology. The towels help humans solve problems like wiping up spills or cleaning objects. The towels are also disposable. Without paper towels, humans would have to use rags, which do not absorb spills or cleaning solutions as easily as paper towels, and they would have to do more laundry. Because this is the Engage activity, simply have students write their best ideas. If they still seem to be having difficulty with the definition of technology, note this so that you can adjust your teaching later in the chapter. You may need to revisit the definition of technology if many students seem to be having problems.

   At times, it might be helpful for you to choose one or two items to grade in students’ technology notebooks. This helps you both save time on grading and determine whether students have the right ideas. For these reasons, occasionally steps or questions are listed that provide a good opportunity for individual assessment. This question is one example. Because this is an Engage activity, it is not recommended that you assign a grade to students based on whether their answers are correct. However, you should determine whether students have a good idea of the definition of technology and how it applies to products that they might not have considered to be technology before the module. You may provide a grade based on your students’ thoughtful answers and use of reason as they use what they learned in the "Doing Technology" chapter to argue whether a paper towel is technology. Their arguments are more important here than whether they think a paper towel is or is not technology.

4. Do you think that the engineers who designed the paper towels considered any of the properties on your list from Step 2? Why or why not?

   Students may have different responses to this question, but many likely will think that the engineers considered some of the properties that people find attractive. This question foreshadows later activities when students need to design products with some awareness of the qualities that consumers want.