Snack Attack! Designing a Snack Holder out of Recycled Materials
Reduce, reuse, recycle—engineer! In this activity that focuses on environmental awareness, students research and read books about various items and buildings made from recycled or reused materials. They then plan, design, and construct a storage space for an individual snack using the engineering design process. They consider key elements such as temperature control, budget, materials, and size.
Students observe and gather materials to reuse in engineering a personal snack holder.Copyright 2021 Ryan Pacheco, University of Florida MRET
Environmental engineers work to improve recycling, waste disposal, public health, and water and air pollution control. They also address global issues, such as unsafe drinking water, climate change, and environmental sustainability. They use various materials in design and construction in virtually every aspect and specialty. The main goal for which they strive is to conserve and benefit the environment as much as possible.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Define environmental conservation.
- Explain reducing, reusing, and recycling and their importance to the environmental conservation.
- Plan collaboratively.
- Apply the engineering design process.
- Measure materials using a ruler with both centimeters and inches.
- Build multiple iterations of their structure to find optimal results.