Infusing engineering concepts into high school science: Opportunities and challenges

Abstract

This chapter shares data and reflections on the challenges and opportunities of infusing engineering concepts into physical science at the high school level. Teachers involved in Project Infuse, a collaborative research project funded by the National Science Foundation, Discovery Research in K-12 is highlighted. Project Infuse was funded to research teacher learning through an innovative approach to professional development that is engineering concept-driven. The Project Infuse teachers and research team have been engaged in the development and refinement of an engineering concept base, the development of an assessment instrument to measure learning gains of the concepts, and approaches to infusing engineering into instruction. This chapter outlines the approach being taken by this project in these endeavors and highlights the key issues involved with infusing engineering concepts into science, which include what engineering concepts are appropriate for high school science and how these concepts can be infused into instruction. Since the goal of infusing engineering concepts is to facilitate both the learning of science content and engineering, one of the findings from the project has been the importance of embedding the engineering concepts into science-based scenarios and content. This is opposed to simply “doing” engineering-types of activities without a grounding in conceptual level understandings.