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Student teams use their knowledge about ancient Egypt to design playgrounds for Egyptian children. This involves brainstorming ideas on paper, building models with Legos or other materials, and explaining their ideas to the class in five-minute presentations.

Engineers work within constraints such as available materials and what would work for a certain culture. In this activity, students study early Egyptian cultural influences and design playgrounds for children in ancient Egypt. ancient Egypt design engineering design process materials model playground play equipment General knowledge of ancient Egyptian culture and architecture. (As necessary, make this a research assignment prior to the design component of the activity.) The steps of the engineering design process paper and pencils books on ancient Egypt, or computers with Internet access, for research (optional) computer with CAD tool software (optional) Legos or other building blocks, or other materials such as cardboard boxes, tape, scissors, sand, paint, etc. Egypt's children are in dire need of a playground. The Pharaoh has just appointed you as the new royal playground designer. Come up with a model playground and present it to the Pharaoh. Make sure student teams are clear on the objective to design and model an ancient Egyptian playground. Use books or the Internet as research and reference tools to learn about the culture of ancient Egypt, and the questions that arise in thinking about available materials and construction techniques available at that time and place. Ask the Investigating Questions to help students focus their research. Brainstorm ideas. Draw layouts of playground designs. Indicate actual materials on the designs. Choose the best one to build a model for the Pharaoh presentation. Using the available resources (Legos, CAD software or scrap materials), construct model playgrounds based on research and drawn designs. Have groups compare each others' playground models and discuss differences, similarities, materials, features and functionality. In five-minute presentations (as if to the Pharaoh), have students describe and explain the rationale for their model playground architecture and layouts. Leave time for audience questions and feedback. As a class, decide which team's design would win the Pharaoh's approval. With what they learned from the critique of their own design, and the ideas from other designs, have students amend their drawings with improvements that they would incorporate to make better playground designs. What building materials would be available in ancient Egypt? What modern building materials would not be availble in ancient Egypt? What construction methods would be available in ancient Egypt? Final Pharaoh Presentation: Assess students based on their creativity; team involvement; incorporation of realistically available materials in ancient Egypt; model accuracy and details; and presentation content, clarity and style. Learn more about the steps of the engineering design process at http://www.teachengineering.org/engrdesignprocess.php