The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) expresses a vision of science education that requires students to not only have an understanding of science concepts but be able to investigate the natural world through process of science inquiry or to solve meaningful problems though the practices of engineering design. While incorporating engineering practices into our science curriculum will soon be requirement of the new state standards, there is little research published as to how this should be implemented in a biology classroom. The goal of this study was to measure the effectiveness of incorporating engineering design into a biology curriculum on student understanding of engineering practices and science content knowledge. The results of this study indicate that the integration of engineering design in a biology curriculum has a positive effect on student's science content knowledge as well as their understanding of engineering design principles.
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