Goals:

• Recognize how a modern urban city relies on public transportation systems

• Recognize common problems associated with the design and construction of mass transit systems.

• Understand that public transportation systems are a complex network of different modes of transportation.

• Understand that there is no “right” solution to mass transit systems.

PA Standards Addressed:

• Standard - 3.4.10.A1: Illustrate how the development of technologies is often driven by profit and an economic market.

• Standard - 3.4.10.A2: Interpret how systems thinking applies logic and creativity with appropriate complicated real-life problems.

• Standard - 3.4.10.B4: Recognize that technological development has been evolutionary, the result of a series of refinements to a basic invention.

• Standard - 3.4.10.C2: Analyze a prototype and/or create a working model to test a design concept by making actual observations and necessary adjustments.

• Standard - 3.4.10.C3: Illustrate the concept that not all problems are technological and not every problem can be solved using technology.

• Standard - 3.4.10.D1. Refine a design by using prototypes and modeling to ensure quality, efficiency, and productivity of a final product.

Next Generation Science Standards Addressed:

• HS-PS3-3 Energy: Design, build, and refine a device that works within given constraints to convert one form of energy into another form of energy.*

• HS-ESS3-2 Earth and Human Activity: Evaluate competing design solutions for developing, managing, and utilizing energy and mineral resources based on cost-benefit ratios.*

• HS-ESS3-4 Earth and Human Activity: Evaluate or refine a technological solution that reduces impacts of human activities on natural systems.*

• HS-ETS1-3 Engineering Design: Evaluate a solution to a complex real-world problem based on prioritized criteria and trade-offs that account for a range of constraints, including cost, safety, reliability, and aesthetics as well as possible social, cultural, and environmental impacts.

Materials:

• Printed Philadelphia map (slide 16)

• Printed lists in slide 15.

• Something on which to write or present (physical or electronic). Refer to main activity.