Child enjoying an engineering activity.

Engineer It: Solving Problems Together

Grades 3-5

How do engineers think as they approach problems affecting people in today’s world? Tag along with an engineer as they use nature to design possible solutions for a noisy problem. Find out how technologies affect kids at schools and cows on farms. Learners use an engineering design process of Learn - Design - Create - Test to improve solutions and engineer the world around them.

Thanks to the generous support of our donors and sponsors, this program is available at no cost to you.

Program Length

Student paced. 40-minutes.

MN Academic Standards

MN Academic Standard Strand: The Nature of Science and Engineering (3.1.3.2, 3.1.3.4), (4.1.2.1, 4.1.2.2, 4.1.3.3)

Next Generation Science Standards

Disciplinary Core Ideas: Defining and Delimiting Engineering Problems (3-5-ETS1-1), Developing Possible Solutions (3-5-ETS1-2) (3-5-ETS1-3), Optimizing the Design Solution (3-5-ETS1-3)

Science and Engineering Practices: Asking Questions and Defining Problems (3-5-ETS1-1), Planning and carrying out investigations (3-5-ETS1-3), Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions (3-5-ETS1-2) 

Crosscutting Concepts: Influence of Engineering, Technology, and Science on Society and the Natural World (3-5-ETS1-1, 3-5-ETS-2)

Learning Goals

  1. Engineers design solutions (products, processes, and systems) to meet human needs and wants.

  2. Engineering design is a systematic and iterative approach that includes the following:

    1. Understanding problems and defining criteria and constraints,

    2. Developing and Testing possible solutions,

    3. Determining an optimum solution given the current understanding of criteria and constraints).

  3. People live in a designed world in which technology and society affect each other and the natural world.