Supporting Engineering Design Ideas with Science and Mathematics: A Case Study of Middle School Life Science Students

Although engineering design is dependent upon the useof science and mathematics, the actual prototype, model, or solution that pre-collegestudents generate can be accomplished without the students explicitly usingscientific or mathematical concepts. It is therefore important to explore howstudents apply science and mathematics concepts when engaged in a curriculumthat was purposefully developed to foster student understanding ofstandards-based content. The purpose of this research is to apply the casestudy method to explore the following research question: How do middle school students use scientific and mathematical conceptsthat were explored during the problem scoping lessons of an engineeringdesign-based STEM integration unit to generate ideas and make design decisions?Researchers collected data from one 7th-grade team during an integrated STEMunit and applied qualitative content analysis methods to examine the data. Thefindings show that students meaningfully used science and mathematics conceptstaught within the unit to defend their engineering design ideas/decisions. Italso revealed incomplete understanding of certain concepts. Engineering designcan provide opportunities for teachers to assess how well students have learnedscientific and mathematical concepts, provided that the curricula are carefullydesigned to prompt students’ use of content to make design decisions.