2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Design approaches such as human-centered design, which focuses on designers’ empathy, have been highlighted in recent engineering studies (Hess & Fila, 2016; Kouprie & Visser, 2009; Walther et al., 2017). Empathic engineering design approaches can help students work in multidisciplinary fields to holistically understand and make design solutions useful for users (Zoltowski et al., 2012). Furthermore, empathy is a central element in cross-cultural education (Gay, 2002; Webb et al., 2012) because it can influence the quality of teachers’ interactions with diverse students (Arghode et al., 2013; Warren, 2014). Empathy is a critical attribute emphasized in both engineering and cross-cultural education. The playground project adopts an empathic engineering design approach in the context of cross-cultural STEM education. This project was designed for elementary preservice teachers to improve their understanding of engineering and cross-cultural STEM education. This unit is a four-day lesson for 4th or 5th graders. Students are invited to be an engineer to design new playground equipment for their community. This project guides students to follow the empathic engineering design process (Enter, Understand and show concern for, Develop user-centered criteria, Plan, Create, Test, and Reflect). Students can develop an empathic design solution by empathizing with various users’ experiences. On the first day of the lesson, students explore how scientific concepts including gravity, momentum, inertia, friction, and lever can be used to design new playground equipment. On day 2, students utilize empathic design techniques to enter the users’ world. They compare their own experiences and users’ experiences in a playground, analyze the features of various playgrounds in the world, engage in a user study by analyzing photos of various users in playgrounds, and read articles about how engineers collaborate with local people to build a new playground. On day 3, students interview primary and/or extreme users to develop user-centered criteria. They plan and construct a prototype. On day 4, students receive feedback from the users, redesign their equipment, and reflect on the impact of their design solutions on the users. Through this unit, students will be able to investigate how physical forces work in a swing set, a slide, and a seesaw, describe how engineers engage in the empathic design process, and empathize with the users’ needs, experiences, feelings, and values regarding playground equipment. Students also will be able to interview various groups of users and capture the information with a nonjudgmental and open mindset, and reflect on how their design solutions impact the user’s life and the community.