2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Biomimicry as an authentic anchor: Giving teacher the tools to adapt an interdisciplinary middle school curriculum (DRK12)

Presented at NSF Grantees Poster Session II

In recognition of the importance of integrated STEM yet the difficulty of implementing it effectively in classrooms, the community has called for research on how to support better integrated learning (English, 2016; Kelley & Knowles, 2016). The Biomimicry as an Authentic Anchor (BAA) project, funded by the DRK12 program of the NSF Division of Research on Learning, takes up this call by designing and researching a professional development model that supports middle school science and engineering teachers to adapt, plan, and enact design-based integrated STEM units focused on biomimicry. Through the BAA professional development model, teachers learn to engage their students in biology and engineering by (a) implementing biomimetic design challenges and (b) supporting students’ design work with structure/function analysis, an invariant concept common to both disciplines. In this poster, we report on a study we have done within this project that has focused on teacher choices, a major focus of this grant. For this study, we analyzed the curricular decisions of seven middle school STEM teachers who were implementing biomimetic design challenges in their classrooms. Guided by activity system theory, we found that different rules for timeframe and required topics, different pre-existing curricular and physical tools, and different teacher goals were consequential to the different teachers’ biomimicry implementations. These findings suggest the flexibility afforded by biomimicry for supporting STEM teachers who want to enact integrated curriculum with their students. In addition to this study of teacher choices, we also report project outcomes to date in terms of student participation. In future work, we plan to analyze students’ learning outcomes and the relationship between these outcomes and teachers’ curriculum choice-making.

Authors

Geling Xu Tufts Center for Engineering Education and Outreach [biography]

Geling Xu is a Ph.D. student in STEM Education at Tufts University and a research assistant at Tufts Center for Engineering Education and Outreach. She is interested in K-12 STEM Education, AI Education, MakerSpace, LEGO Education, and curriculum design.
Dr. Kristen B Wendell Tufts University [biography]

Kristen Wendell is Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Education at Tufts University. Her research at the Center for Engineering Education and Outreach explores curriculum and pedagogy that support all learners in discourse and design practices for engineering knowledge construction.
Ms. Tyrine Jamella Pangan Tufts University [biography]

Tyrine Jamella Pangan is a STEM Education PhD student at Tufts University and a Graduate Research Assistant at the Tufts University Center for Engineering Education and Outreach (CEEO). She is interested in integrating social and emotional learning (SEL) in engineering, specifically within the elementary school context. Tyrine hopes to explore how Transformative SEL can be implemented to cultivate socially responsible engineers.
Debra Bernstein
William Church
Dr. Ethan E Danahy http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1431-8031 Tufts University [biography]

Dr. Ethan Danahy is a Research Associate Professor at the Center for Engineering Education and Outreach (CEEO) with secondary appointment in the Department of Computer Science within the School of Engineering at Tufts University. Having received his graduate degrees in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from Tufts University, he continues research in the design, implementation, and evaluation of different educational technologies. With particular attention to engaging students in the STEAM content areas, he focuses his investigations on enhancing creativity and innovation, supporting better documentation, and encouraging collaborative learning.

Note

The full paper will be available to logged in and registered conference attendees once the conference starts on June 22, 2025, and to all visitors after the conference ends on June 25, 2025

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Broadening Participation in Engineering and Engineering Technology
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