Experimental Design: The Perfect Paper Towel

This summer I am supporting Amazon’s ACES team (Amazon Customer Excellence System). Within Amazon Devices, this team supports short and long term improvements of business processes. The goal of this ETP is to utilize the skills of quality methodologies (ex. Root causes, DMAIC, 8D) as well as unique Amazonian characteristics such as one-door, two-door decisions and the culture of writing. This is a lesson that helps students build on experimental design skills to support a strong foundation in critical thinking, problem solving, and scientific argument. Students will be guided through two activities where they first learn about different techniques for problem solving, then they are designing an experiment to test claims about different paper towel products with the outcome of making a recommendation to the school or company about how to improve the product. At the end of the activity students will be assessed on their understanding by demonstrating scientific argument in a CER (claim, evidence, reasoning) format.