Technology Systems

Key idea: Technological systems are designed to achieve specific results and produce outputs, such as products, structures, services, energy, or other systems.

Performance Indicators

Elementary

Students will:

• identify familiar examples of technological systems that are used to satisfy human needs and wants, and select them on the basis of safety, cost, and function
• assemble and operate simple technological systems, including those with interconnecting mechanisms to achieve different kinds of movement
• understand that larger systems are made up of smaller component subsystems

Intermediate

Students will:

• select appropriate technological systems on the basis of safety, function, cost, ease of operation, and quality of post-purchase support
• assemble, operate, and explain the operation of simple open- and closed-loop electrical, electronic, mechanical, and pneumatic systems
• describe how subsystems and system elements (inputs, processes, outputs) interact within systems
• describe how system control requires sensing information, processing it, and making changes

Commencement

Students will:

• explain why making tradeoffs among characteristics, such as safety, function, cost, ease of operation, quality of post-purchase support, and environmental impact, is necessary when selecting systems for specific purposes
• model, explain, and analyze the performance of a feedback control system
• explain how complex technological systems involve the confluence of numerous other systems