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  • Grades K-2

    Engineering Design

Students who demonstrate understanding can:

Performance Expectations

  1. Analyze data from tests of two objects designed to solve the same problem to compare the strengths and weaknesses of how each performs. K-2-ETS1-3

    Clarification Statement and Assessment Boundary

A Peformance Expectation (PE) is what a student should be able to do to show mastery of a concept. Some PEs include a Clarification Statement and/or an Assessment Boundary. These can be found by clicking the PE for "More Info." By hovering over a PE, its corresponding pieces from the Science and Engineering Practices, Disciplinary Core Ideas, and Crosscutting Concepts will be highlighted.

Science and Engineering Practices

Disciplinary Core Ideas

Crosscutting Concepts

By clicking on a specific Science and Engineering Practice, Disciplinary Core Idea, or Crosscutting Concept, you can find out more information on it. By hovering over one you can find its corresponding elements in the PEs.

Planning Curriculum

Common Core State Standards Connections

ELA/Literacy

  • W.2.6 - With guidance and support from adults, use a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including in collaboration with peers. (K-2-ETS1-3)
  • W.2.8 - Recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer a question. (K-2-ETS1-3)

Mathematics

  • 2.MD.D.10 - Draw a picture graph and a bar graph (with single-unit scale) to represent a data set with up to four categories. Solve simple put-together, take-apart, and compare problems using information presented in a bar graph. (K-2-ETS1-3)
  • MP.2 - Reason abstractly and quantitatively. (K-2-ETS1-3)
  • MP.4 - Model with mathematics. (K-2-ETS1-3)
  • MP.5 - Use appropriate tools strategically. (K-2-ETS1-3)

Model Course Mapping

First Time Visitors

Resources & Lesson Plans

  • More resources added each week!
    A team of teacher curators is working to find, review, and vet online resources that support the standards. Check back often, as NSTA continues to add more targeted resources.
  • A Place in the Shade- An Engineering Challenge

    In this lesson students collaborate while planning, constructing, and testing a structure that reduces the warming effect of sunlight on an ice cube.  This is the seventh lesson of a nine lesson betterlesson.com unit by Joyce Baumann.

  • Paper Bridge Materials Challenge

    This activity is an extension of the Paper Bridge Design Challenge.  In addition to making bridges out of folded pieces of paper, students will have access to a variety of materials (construction paper, aluminum foil, wax paper, cardstock, and m ...

  • Engineering Encounters: Engineering Adaptations

    This resource highlights that many of the science investigations that teachers are currently using in their classrooms can easily be adapted to engage students in engineering design.  In this article the authors share two examples of how they ad ...

  • Engineering Encounters: Sailing Into the Digital Era

    This resource combines The Engineering Design Process and technology using an iPad to have students create an electronic STEM journal documenting what they learned about wind and weather as they design sails for a model boat.

  • Engineering Motion

    This article provides insight on an a first grade derby car engineering activity.  First graders build derby cars while enhancing their communication skills. This lesson illustrates how the engineering design process, coupled with differentiatio ...

  • Assessing the Unseen

    This article describes a six-day unit for first graders that integrates music, science, and literature to assess and develop first graders' knowledge of sound waves.

  • A House for Chase the Dog

    This 5-E lesson plan requires second graders to use observations and the engineering design process to test a variety of materials and decide which would make the best rain-proof roof for a doghouse.

  • Catch Me If You Can!

    This resource is an introductory kindergarten STEM unit that focused on building a trap to catch a gingerbread man.  This activity integrates STEM with literacy as students read, write, learn about pushes and pulls, and design a trap for th ...

  • Can We Save This Mountain?

    This lesson was designed for students to investigate the impact that humans can have in controlling erosion.  Students plan, design, construct, and evaluate ways to slow or prevent landslides from changing the shape of the land.

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  •  Invent a Backscratcher from Everyday Materials

    From TeachEngineering - Being able to recognize a problem and design a potential solution is the first step in the development of new and useful products. In this activity, students create devices to get "that pesky itch in the center of your back." ...

  •  Simple Snow Load Roof Model Demo: Which Roof Is Tops?

    From TeachEngineering - When you walk or drive around your neighborhood, what do the roofs look like? What if you lived in an area with a different climate, how might that affect the style of roofs that you see? Through this introductory engineering ...

  •  Do Different Colors Absorb Heat Better?

    From TeachEngineering - Students test whether the color of a material affects how much heat it absorbs. They leave ice cubes placed in boxes made of colored paper (one box per color; white, yellow, red and black) in the sun, and predict in which colo...

  •  The Benefit of Inclined Planes: Heave Ho!

    From TeachEngineering - Students discover the scientific basis for the use of inclined planes. Using a spring scale, a bag of rocks and an inclined plane, student groups explore how dragging objects up a slope is easier than lifting them straight up ...

  •  Bringing STEM to the Elem. Classroom Ch 18

    A House for Chase the Dog

  •  "What is Engineering?" Resources & Lesson Plan

    Grade: Kindergarten. Duration: 1 hour. Type: Website with a lesson plan, video, and other resources. This website is FULL of amazing resources giving Kindergarteners an intro to Engineering. It provides a video, a read-aloud, discussion questions, ...

Planning Curriculum gives connections to other areas of study for easier curriculum creation.