NGSS Engineering: Grades K-2

In this guide, you will:

• Get to know the grades K-2 Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) for engineering.
• See examples of how the standards relate to real-world engineering at NASA JPL, and meet the engineers leading these exciting missions and projects to explore Earth and space.
• Find standards-aligned lesson plans and student projects you can deploy in the classroom to engage students in learning with NASA.

The Next Generation Science Standards for engineering fit within the Engineering, Technology and Applications of Science (ETS) Disciplinary Core Idea. Each NGSS standard addresses one of the subsections of the ETS Disciplinary Core Ideas:

• Defining and Delimiting Engineering Problems – What is a design for, and what are the criteria and constraints of a successful solution?
• Developing Possible Solutions – What is the process for developing potential design solutions?
• Optimizing the Design Solution – How can the various design solutions be compared and improved?

These ideas make up the essential elements of the engineering design process, a process by which engineers identify a problem, design and build a solution, test the solution, and improve on their design.

Disciplinary Core Idea: Defining and Delimiting Engineering Problems

Definition: Ask questions, make observations, and gather information about a situation people want to change to define a simple problem that can be solved through the development of a new or improved object or tool.

How it's used at NASA JPL: Before NASA’s Cloudsat satellite was built, there were a lot of questions engineers had to answer and scientific information that needed to be gathered about clouds. This helped engineers define what their tool, a satellite, would do.

According to Cloudsat Mission Manager Deborah Vane, “Cloudsat can study clouds in a way that hasn’t been studied before. One of the most uncertain parts about trying to understand how our climate might change in the future is understanding how clouds might change. We need to be able to correctly predict how they’re going to behave, how much water they’re going to carry, where they’re going to carry it."

In the video below, Vane discusses how the team gathered information to define what their spacecraft would do.

Use it in the classroom: Just as Deborah Vane shared the process of gathering information and asking questions to develop a space mission to collect important data about clouds, your students will learn about clouds in the lesson below. They will then use the engineering design process to develop a solution to a weather-related problem.

Expand on the standard: In the K-2 classroom, students may be aware of a problem or situation they would like to change. Asking questions about a problem, gathering information and making observations can help to clarify and understand the problem.

They can ask who, what, where, when, why and how questions about things they see happening in the classroom or at school. They can gather information by counting how many times a situation happens, finding the location of an problem, or taking measurements in the location a problem occurs.

These steps help to define what the problem is and identify what a successful solution will accomplish.

Disciplinary Core Idea: Developing Possible Solutions

Definition: Develop a simple sketch, drawing, or physical model to illustrate how the shape of an object helps it function as needed to solve a given problem.

How it's used at NASA JPL: How do you pick up rock sample tubes left on Mars? It starts with a drawing. The Perseverance Mars rover is collecting samples of Martian rocks and leaving them in tubes on the surface to be retrieved by a later mission. That creates a problem to be solved by engineering.

Robotic engineer Paulo Younse worked to help figure that out and said, “One of the solutions that we came up with is to use a robotic arm.” After defining what the design solution needs to do, and figuring out how long and how strong the arm needs to be, it was time to start designing.

Use it in the classroom: Try this lesson with your students. They'll design and build a robotic arm, similar to those described by Paulo Younse, from ordinary materials to accomplish a simple task.

Expand on the standard: As a class, or in groups, students will brainstorm solutions to a problem by thinking of objects and tools that can be created or improved to solve that problem. After brainstorming, students will draw or create a representation of the idea in a way that communicates their thinking to others. This could be a basic sketch on paper, a simple computer drawing, or a physical model made from things like toy bricks, clay, card stock, or chenille stems.

Disciplinary Core Idea: Optimizing the Design Solution

Definition: Analyze data from tests of two objects designed to solve the same problem to compare the strengths and weaknesses of how each performs.

How it's used at NASA JPL: In an effort to land larger and more massive objects on Mars, NASA has tested a variety of parachutes on the Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator project, or LDSD. LDSD uses a large parachute to help slow a landing vehicle.

As Dr. Chris Tanner puts it, "Parachutes are a little bit unique in the engineering design process, in that we don't have really good models to show us how parachutes work. Things that are made out of textiles are generally much harder to test and model." Tanner describes in detail some of the tests they carry out when comparing parachutes.

Use it in the classroom: Similar to the way Chris talked about how JPL tests parachute designs, your students will test a parachute and then create their own design.

Expand on the standard: There are multiple solutions to solve any given problem, and as a result, students in the classroom will generate more than one idea to solve the problem. When two brainstormed ideas have been made into a tool or object, they will need to be tested. Students should ask, “Did the tool or object solve the problem?” If it did not, students should look at ways to change and improve their design in a way that allows it to solve the problem. Because multiple ideas may each solve the problem successfully, how well each solution solves the problem should also be considered.