Hi. It's Paul Andersen and this is disciplinary core idea ETS1A. What do the
E, the T and the S stand for? Well E stands for engineering. T for technology. And S stands
for science. And so this is the first of five engineering disciplinary core ideas. And on
this one we're looking at is how to better define and delimit an engineering problem.
And so it's important you're students understand the difference between science and engineering.
Engineering is the application of science to solve certain human needs. So an example
of one that I've talked about before is how did we get the Mars Curiosity to Mars? And
so what we're looking at there is an engineering problem. And so when you're talking about
this with your students make sure they understand that if you're a scientist or if you're doing
science what you're really trying to do is understand phenomena in the universe. And
so Einstein is an example of a scientist and what he was doing was asking question. And
the idea is to come up with answers to those questions that we have about phenomena in
the universe. How are engineers like Thomas Edison a little bit different than that? What
we're looking at is solving human needs. Solving human problems. And that always begins with
defining the problem and then coming up with a solution through this process of design.
And so that's important that your students understand the difference between the two.
In inquiry we're coming up an answer. In design we're coming up with an answer as well, but
there maybe more than one answer to those problems. And that's the big thing that's
the difference between engineering and science. In science there's going to be one answer
to that question. Maybe an answer that's contributed to by a number of different variables, but
there's going to be one answer to that problem. One answer to that question. In engineering
there's a lot of different answers. And so what was the problem NASA was faced with?
They had to get Mars Curiosity from the Earth to Mars. And so how did they do that? Well
this is the solution they came up with. Put it on a big rocket. Eventually we're going
to have a capsule that deploys. It's going to move into the atmosphere. We have a parachute.
That eventually is released. We have rockets. We have a sky crane with rockets. And so it's
a really elaborate solution. And they probably had a lot of other solutions to this problem
as well. But this is the one that best fit the criteria and constraints of this problem.
And what future problems are we going to have as humans? We're going to have energy in the
future. We're going to have to clean up our water. We're going to have enough food for
all of the people on our planet. And so it's important the students understand the importance
of engineering and that engineering process. And how design works, because they're going
to have to come up with solutions to these problems. And there's this real simplistic
view of engineering. This idea that if we have a problem all we do is come up with a
solution. And that's design. It's not as simple as that. What we're going to have is a very
difficult problem. And a solution that has a number of what are called criteria. And
so every solution is going to have criteria. A good way to explain what criteria is, is
these are going to be the "wants" of that solution. This is how good we want our solution
to be. And what's going to stand between the problem and the solution, those are called
the constraints. And so there are going to be a number of different constraints between
the problem and the solution. And so real design is going to have to hit these, what
are called "needs". We have to have these constraints. And then these wants that we
have. And that's what design looks like. But it's even more complex than that. Because
there's going to be a number of different designs and a number of different solutions
that we're going to have to come up with before we eventually come up with one. We'll talk
more about that in the next video. And so let me give you an example that you could
use in school. It's call The Naked Egg Drop. What you do, instead of a conventional egg
drop, is you simply drop an egg from a height, and the students get to choose that. And then
you don't want the egg to break. And so you might say that's impossible. And it is impossible
if you drop it on a hard surface. And so in this problem the solution is to come up with
a container that can stop that egg from breaking as it falls. And so what are some of the "wants"
that we would have in that container? Well we would want it to work. We want it to be
durable, low cost. And then it could work at a high drop. In other words we could drop
the egg from a high height and it's going to survive. So those are the things that we
want in our solution. What are some of the needs? Well you're going to find the needs
if you're doing an engineering problem like this is in school. That's going to be the
list of materials. The things that you can use in the experiment. And so in this case
if you're to google "Naked Egg Drop" most of the directions are going to say that it
has to be independent. You can't just sit there and hold the container and try to catch
the egg. It has to remain intact. It can't break apart. It has certain materials you
can use. You can't use glass for example. And then it has to have specific volume. It
can't be too high. It can't be too wide. It can't be too long. And so those are going
to be the needs. You're not going to be able to enter it into that competition unless you've
satisfied all of the needs. And then we get to the wants that you have. And so you come
up with a design problem. So how do you teach this in school? Well a great way to teach
it is to actually give them a problem. And a problem that you might want to use is called
the marshmallow challenge. If you go to marshmallow challenge .com there's a TED talk given on
this. And it gives you the directions on how to do this. But imagine if we're talking about
lower elementary grades, if you were to just give them the following directions. Today,
class, I want you to build a free standing structure that's supports one marshmallow.
Here's your marshmallow. Go. Well if you were to do that what they would do is be confused.
Scared probably. But they would start asking you a bunch of questions. And that's the first
step in this engineering process. They would ask you questions like, who's in my group?
What can we use? How long do we have to build it? Should it be short. Should it be tall?
What should it look like? They'd ask you all of these questions. And these are the questions
that an engineer would ask themselves when they're coming up with a solution. And so
solutions as we move into the upper elementary grades should be based on two things. It should
be based on the materials and resources that you have. And it's okay to call those constraints
with your students. And then an example, if we're doing the marshmallow challenge would
be what can we use. You get a marshmallow, spaghetti. You get come tape. String. And
then you get a certain amount of time. And then the wants that we have. What are the
desired features. Well in the marshmallow challenge you want it to work. You want it
to be able to support that marshmallow which is actually harder than you might think. And
we want to make it as high as we can. When I've done it in class we do it as a competition.
You get twenty minutes. You want it to be as high you can without breaking. And most
of them end up breaking. As we move into middle school we want to talk about they importance
of defining the problem. And really spending a lot of time analyzing the constraints. And
analyzing the criteria of this problem that we have. A good example would be this. When
they were trying to land Curiosity on Mars, how much time do you think they spent on defining
the problem? Coming up with the criteria? Coming up with the constraints? They had to
know a lot about you know, how much money can we spend? What is the atmosphere of Mars
look like? What materials can we use? What's success? And so really have your students
spend a lot of time on that first step. It's going to save them time later. And then as
we move into high school we want to start talking about future designs. In other words
designing solutions to future problems that we have. Problems that I addressed earlier
like energy and food supply. And the idea that we're going to have a number of different
constraints. We're going to have a number of different criteria. It's important that
we really define that problem. But there's going to be a whole different set of criteria
and constraints that are going to be societal. In other words that other humans have. Because
in the future we have to share these solutions with everyone else. And certain solutions
that we have may impact other individuals. And so when we're designing for the future
we have clearly the criteria and constraints of the problem at hand but also we have societal
constraints. Because we've got some serious problems. A lot of those related to climate
change in the future. And we're going to have to have some smart kids that can solve them.
That's just the first step. Define the problem and then come up with a better solution. And
I hope that was helpful.