The following literature selections are organized into four categories: fairy and ethnic tales, picture books, historical fiction and fiction chapter books. Each selection includes appropriate grade level range, story summary, and possible design challenges. Some selections also include extensions
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"Engineering design challenges" are created by actionable items in the story and lead to inquiry based team projects that have a design theme. As an example, in the story "Island of the Blue Dolphins", the village leaves canoes on the side of a hill for escaping a potential attack. The heroine in the story has a difficult time getting one of them down the hill and into the water. A "design challenge" for the students could be to design a system to make it easier for her to lower the canoe.
The students can pick the character they are working for in the story to create a design challenge. As an example they might want to work for the wolf in the 3-pigs to find a way to catch the pigs.