Science and engineering practices, disciplinary core ideas, and crosscutting concepts make up the three dimensions of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). These ‘BIG THREE’ relationships form the foundation of the NGSS because they are the foundation of innovation in STEM industries as well.
When we give students the opportunity to figure out phenomena at the core of STEM components – science, technology, engineering and math – in the classroom, we provide them with the opportunity to think like scientists and engineers, while strengthening their own critical thinking skills.
The history of STEM education in the U.S. goes back to the 1800’s, when the country began working to promote the engineering and agricultural skills needed to support a growing nation. Today, we use the acronym STEM to refer to the 21st century career fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (with an A sometimes included to refer to the Arts), after the National Science Foundation (NSF) coined the term in the 1990’s.
When we look at the relationships between the four key components of STEM, the study and practice of science is about gaining knowledge from experimentation, while engineering uses scientific knowledge to produce technology that solves problems. Math supports these three components with the tools for quantifying or measuring, then communicating information.
When we think about effective STEM instruction, teachers should be providing authentic learning opportunities where students are empowered to discover and take risks with each component and see how they work together in action. For example, scientists and engineers cannot design an effective experiment, or build a working engineering model, without the math skills required to test, analyze, and report on their results.
NGSS-instruction requires students to use what they learn in different situations and contexts. To achieve this level of mastery, they need the time and space to practice the critical thinking skills that make scientists and engineers most effective in the real world – thinking outside the box, investigating and problem solving, developing and testing their own models, and analyzing information from diverse sources – just to name a few. STEM instruction provides a real-world link to the study of science and an opportunity to practice skills like these in action.
To see how this works in NGSS-led classrooms, picture a three-legged stool, with each of the three dimensions a leg that is helping to hold up the seat. The seat represents the performance expectations for NGSS, while the dimensions support student mastery of the standards, including their ability to demonstrate that understanding.
The three dimensions of science learning related to NGSS include:
What do the three dimensions look like in action in an NGSS-based curriculum? Consider a lesson that uses the NGSS 3 dimensions to support the performance expectation of developing a model to describe the movement of matter among plants, animals, decomposers, and the environment.
For example, students could develop a model of a food web to analyze how matter cycles and energy transfers through both the living and nonliving parts of the ecosystem. They might then use their model to extend their reasoning and answer a question related to how the cycling of matter and flow of energy changes when an invasive species is introduced to the ecosystem, observing and evaluating the connections in the system.
The example above highlights a key shift in NGSS education – the performance expectation that students showcase their knowledge and skills in the context of developing an understanding of phenomena. As they design and develop this model, the students are building out their own understanding of what “energy transfer” and “matter” mean, while they use those concepts to actively engage in the STEM components, lead their own investigation into a real-world phenomenon, and report their conclusions.
When we are committed to NGSS 3 dimensional learning in the classroom, students have the opportunity to think creatively and critically about how to solve real-world problems. They are building a better understanding about the world around them and the critical thinking skills to strengthen that knowledge now and in the future. We are engaging the next generation of STEM leaders, who will need to know how to question, analyze, evaluate, problem-solve, create, and innovate to push the boundaries of the STEM industries as we know them today and reinvent them in the future.