Page 152 - Standards for K-12 Engineering Education

Standards for K-12 Engineering Education?

APPENDIX B 137

others have done, imagine what some solutions might be, create a plan and test a possible solution,
then improve the design and communicate it others.
Grades 5–8: At the middle school level students can more thoroughly describe how the engineering
design process would be applied to a problem situation. They can describe steps that can be
performed in different sequences and repeated as needed. Although there are slightly different
descriptions of the design process in the literature, most converge on a set of steps like the following:
(1) define the problem, (2) research how others have solved it, (3) generate several alternative
solutions, (4) select the most promising solution, (5) make a prototype, (6) test and evaluate it, (7)
communicate the results, (8) redesign based on feedback.
Grades 9–12: When asked to describe technologies around them, high school students recognize that
almost everything that they see, touch, hear, or otherwise experience has been designed by people
using the engineering design process. One way of demonstrating this knowledge is by “reverse
engineering” an everyday example of technology. They also understand that the engineering design
process is a highly flexible approach to recognizing, defining, and solving problems or to meeting
human needs or desires.

2. Technology is a fundamental attribute of human culture. We define human cultures largely in
terms of the technologies people in those cultures engineer and use.
Grades K–5: At the elementary level students can distinguish things found in nature from things that
are made by people. They can also give examples of how naturally occurring materials such as wood,
clay, cotton, and animal skins may be processed or combined with other materials to change their
properties in order to solve human problems and enhance the quality of life.

Grades 5–8: Middle school students can explain how technologies such as spear points, grinding
bowls, and pottery provide evidence of how people who lived long ago solved problems, how they
must have lived, and even something of their creativity and sense of aesthetics. They can give
examples of historical periods that have been named for the dominant technology, such as the Iron
Age, the Bronze Age, or the Industrial Revolution. They can also give examples of the vast number
and variety of technologies that pervade modern society, as well as technologies that are particular to
their own cultural communities.
Grades 9–12: High school students can cite some evidence in support of the statement that “As long
as there have been people, there has been technology.” They can also cite evidence that technology
has been a powerful force in the development of civilization by giving examples of how technology
has shaped values, commerce, language, and the arts. High school students should also be able to
describe the rapid pace of technological change in their own era, as well as modern civilization’s
dependence on technological systems, such as the electrical power grid, transportation systems, and
food production and distribution systems.
3. Science and engineering differ in terms of goals, processes, and products. Science is a means of
learning about the natural world, while engineering is a process for changing it. Technological advances
may enable new scientific discoveries, while scientific understanding sometimes results in new or
improved technologies.
Grades K–5: Students are able to distinguish the questioning, observation, and experimentation
process of scientific inquiry from the problem-solving process of engineering design. They can give
examples of how a scientist might go about studying the life cycle of a butterfly and how an engineer
might go about designing a better car. They can also give examples of how engineers apply science
in their work and how scientists rely on technologies developed by engineers.

Grades 5–8: Middle school students can explain the differences in goals, processes, and products of
scientists and engineers. They can also give examples of why engineering is essential to science (e.g.
for gaining access to outer space, for observing very small or very distant objects) and why science is

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