NGSS Engineering: Grades 3-5

In this guide, you will:

• Get to know the grades 3-5 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: Define a simple design problem reflecting a need or a want that includes specified criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost.

How it's used at NASA JPL: Engineers who drove the Mars rover Opportunity from Earth had to carefully consider the driving criteria designed into the rover, and its limiting constraints as they explored the red planet. The rover logged more than a marathon’s worth of miles since landing in 2004.

Engineers who built Opportunity had to define what the rover would be able to do, and understand the limits of its capabilities. Hallie Gengl, a driver on the team, discusses the factors the drive team must consider as they plan daily drives.

Use it in the classroom: Just as a rover driver must know what the rover is capable of doing on Mars and the risks from rocks, loose materials and other hazards to design a drive to a specific point in the distance, students must discover the strengths and limitations of the materials (pasta, mints, etc.) to design their rover and perform a task.

Expand on the standard: Building on skills developed in K-2, students will make observations, gather information and ask questions to identify a problem that can be solved in the classroom, school, or community. Students will identify the goals they want to their design to accomplish—the criteria—as well as the limits they will encounter—the constraints.

Disciplinary Core Idea: Developing Possible Solutions

Definition: Generate and compare multiple possible solutions to a problem based on how well each is likely to meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.

How it's used at NASA JPL: Engineers designing missions to the surface of Mars have to develop a solution to safely deliver the mission to the surface of the planet. Dr. Anita Sengupta, an aerospace engineer, describes what it was like to develop possible solutions, and the way teams compared design solutions to ultimately choose the option that would best meet the mission requirements.

Use it in the classroom: Similar to the way JPL engineers generate and compare multiple solutions to the problem of landing a spacecraft on Mars, your students work with different constraints in this design challenge to safely land astronauts on the moon.

Expand on the standard: In addition to questioning and observing, students can gather information from the Internet, texts, and local experts in the field that can aid them in designing a solution. Students can then brainstorm and develop a variety of possible solutions.

Based on what they learned in their research, they will discuss which solutions they think will meet the criteria for success they defined, while at the same time fitting within the constraints they identified.

Student groups or individuals might select one design solution to be built and tested, or several designs to be compared. In either case, an entire class will develop a variety of design solutions.

Disciplinary Core Idea: Optimizing the Design Solution

Definition: Plan and carry out fair tests in which variables are controlled and failure points are considered to identify aspects of a model or prototype that can be improved.

How it's used at NASA JPL: Engineers developing rockets must control variables and consider failure points when improving rocket designs to increase the amount of mass they can lift into space.

“There are a lot of different pieces that you can change when you’re designing an engine or a rocket,” says Dr. Kristina Kipp, an engineer working on the Mars 2020 rover mission. “We can change the fuel type and that can change how the propulsion system works. We can change the number of engines and the size of the engines. We could even change the shape to make the rockets more aerodynamic.”

Use it in the classroom: Give your students a chance to test out different versions of a straw rocket to see which changes improve their design or which result in failures in the design of the prototype -- just as NASA rocket scientists do -- testing one variable at a time.

Another way it's used at NASA JPL: Engineers building new antennas for the Deep Space Network (DSN) must carry out strategic testing to ensure these upgrades will work. The DSN is an important asset that allows NASA to communicate with all spacecraft in deep space.

“That means the moon and beyond, places like Mars, Saturn, and the Voyager 1 spacecraft, which has left the solar system,” according to Melissa Soriano, a software engineer at JPL who works on the DSN. In this video, Soriano explains some of the variables they tested when building a new system designed to listen to faint spacecraft signals.

Use it in the classroom: Students develop and test methods to improve communication patterns in a way that simulates how JPL Deep Space Network engineers build and test new systems used to communicate with spacecraft.

Expand on the standard: Because multiple solutions will be generated, tests need to be carried out to determine which solution(s) succeed, and which successful designs meet the criteria better than others.

In a fair test, each solution is exposed to conditions similar to what it would likely face in its intended location. Changes in the design -- the variables -- can be made, but to be clear which changes lead to improvements or failures, only one variable should be tested at a time.

If multiple aspects of a design are changed at once, it can be difficult for students to be sure which changes made the differences in performance. When a solution fails or does not fully meet the criteria, where it fell short should be examined and changes made.