Curriculum Research & Development Group

Two students at Waipahu Intermediate show off a toy that they have modified for children with disabilities.

 

Invention Factory
Community Partners
Waipahu Intermediate School

Dole Middle School

Farrington High School

Kalākaua Middle School

Roosevelt High School

O‘ahu’s leeward coast home schools

The Assistive Technology Resource Center of Hawai‘i

Shriners Hospital

Hawai‘i Department of Education

Kapi‘olani Children’s Hospital Speech and Hearing Clinic

Hawai‘i Department of Health Early
Intervention Program

CRDG

Research & Curriculum Development | pg.4
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The Invention Factory Students Aid
Children with Disabilities
Teenagers from several intermediate and high schools have contributed modified toys and switches to community institutions that serve disabled children through the Invention Factory program. Students in this nontraditional, after-school program have worked with Shriners Hospital, Kapi‘olani Children’s Hospital Speech and Hearing Clinic, the Hawai‘i Department of Health Early Intervention Program, and the Hawai‘i Department of Education special education teachers to create modified toys that meet specific needs. Projects are carefully defined to include the client student as an equal partner in the design and invention process with the Invention Factory student-designers. In its first year, Invention Factory students contributed over one hundred toys and switches to the community. A lending library of toys that Invention Factory students have modified is maintained by the Assistive Technology Resource Center of Hawai‘i.

The Invention Factory is a youth-based program that teaches information technology and mechanics to teenagers through hands-on projects that improve human computer interaction for disabled and elderly individuals.

In addition to providing real devices to contribute to the community, the Invention Factory program stimulates interest in science and engineering careers among students currently underrepresented in those fields: women, Native Hawaiians, students with disabilities, and students at risk of academic failure. Students learn sufficient electronics, mechanics, mathematics, and computer programming to enable them to develop needs analysis, design, fabrication, and evaluation of devices that meet the needs of disabled people. This learning, in turn, promotes science, engineering, and mathematics subjects to teenagers. The broader outcome is that students who create technology-based solutions that impact people have substantially increased motivation to pursue careers in engineering and science.

Making the Connection: CRDG Web Databases
Web databases created by the CRDG Learning Technology Section allow easy access, entry, and examination of educational and scientific data by other CRDG sections and members of the community at large. The Hawai‘i Watersheds and School Web of Instructional Media (SWIM) databases provide valuable connections to scientific and curriculum data to scientists, environmentalists, teachers, students, and interested observers.

The Hawai‘i Watersheds Database was created as a part of a Hawai‘i Department of Health project to provide a central place for students, teachers, and professional researchers to develop and test hypotheses to understand the impact of human behavior and natural events on the watershed ecology. The project’s geographical scope includes watershed areas of Kaua‘i, Lāna‘i, O‘ahu, Moloka‘i, and Hawai‘i. The data topics include location, time, weather, land use, ocean characteristics, fresh water characteristics, chemistry, substrates, plants, animals, and investigatory influence. Over 1500 entries from school groups and the community can be found on the site (www. hawaii.edu/environment). This database also supports the Kōlea Watch (www. hawaiinaturecenter.org/kolea/index.html), a project of the Hawai‘i Nature Center, which has recorded 1400 observations.

The School Web of Instructional Media (SWIM) (www.hawaii.edu/swim/) makes connections between CRDG curricula, thousands of extant video, still pictures, and World Wide Web pages, and 350 registered instructors. The SWIM database allows teachers and students from around the world to enrich and enhance their learning experience with its quick textbook-media connections, each linked to a specific concept.

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