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The Poetry of Science

Celebrating Engineers

Science and Children—January/February 2021 (Volume 58, Issue 3)

By Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong

Take 5!

  1. Draw or show a giant question mark and alert children that this poem asks a lot of questions. Then read the poem aloud with a questioning voice.
  2. Share the poem again and invite children to answer the questions raised in the poem by chiming in on the key word engineers while you read the rest aloud.
  3. Use this poem to help children describe what engineers do. One helpful resource is GetCaughtEngineering.com (Internet Resources). Make a list of all the items included in the poem (building, airplane, toaster, TV, computer chip, bike, water ski).
  4. Pair this poem with the picture book Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty (Resources) and talk about how imagination is an important part of engineering.
  5. Link this poem with “National Aviation Day” by Tamera Will Wissinger (Internet Resources), with poems from Incredible Inventions, edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins (Resources), and with the fun app, Build and Play 2 (Internet Resources).
toaster

On National Engineers Week

by Suzy Levinson

Who designs a building that’s
so tall it scrapes the sky?
And the airplanes high above . . .
which seem too big to fly?

Who draws up the plans for stuff
like toasters and TVs?
How about computer chips,
bikes, and water skis?

Who creates things, big and small,
that we use every day?
The answer: engineers, of course!
This week’s for them—hooray! 

Poem © 2015 Suzy Levinson from The Poetry Friday Anthology for Celebrations (Teacher/Librarian Edition) by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong © 2015 Pomelo Books; illustration by Frank Ramspott from The Poetry of Science: The Poetry Friday Anthology for Science for Kids © 2015 Pomelo Books.   

Reference

Levinson, S. 2015. “On National Engineers Week” in The Poetry Friday Anthology for Celebrations, eds. S. Vardell and J. Wong, 71. Princeton, NJ: Pomelo Books.

Resources

Beaty, A. 2013. Rosie Revere, Engineer. New York: Abrams.

Hopkins, L.B. 2009. Incredible Inventions. New York: HarperCollins.

Internet Resources

Build and Play 2 app
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/build-and-play-2/id687718966

GetCaughtEngineering.com
https://www.getcaughtengineering.com

“National Aviation Day” by Tamera Will Wissinger
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/361625045085316153/

Engineering Interdisciplinary Elementary

Asset 2