MOSES LAKE — A group of Garden Heights students formed small boats out of foil Tuesday night and were captivated to see how many pennies they could pile on their creations before they sank to the bottom of a plastic bucket filled with water.

The challenge was just one of the dozens of activities centered around engineering, math and science that hundreds of students and their families participated in at the school’s Science and Engineering Night. Students excitedly participated in many challenges, soaking in different concepts about how things work throughout the night. Families perused the activities with their children from 5:30 to 7 p.m.

Garden Heights is not the first of Moses Lake’s elementary schools to host an after-hours event focused on introducing engineering and science activities and concepts to students, nor will it be the last. Rumi Hernandez, a K-5 science elementary facilitator in the Moses Lake School District (MLSD), said eight of the district’s 10 K-5 schools have either already hosted an engineering night or have one scheduled.

The goal of the districtwide effort is to introduce students to engineering concepts and cross-cutting approaches to learning science disciplines to prepare them for the state’s Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Hernandez said acquainting students with these topics and practices will help them transition to learning under the new standards, which are being implemented throughout Washington.

Washington adopted the Next Generation Science Standards in October 2013, making it the eighth state to adopt them. The NGSS are “new standards that provide consistent science education through all grades, with an emphasis on engineering and technology,” per the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI).

According to a tentative assessment timeline provided by OSPI, the transition to and implementation of the NGSS in Washington’s schools was anticipated to take place from adoption in 2013 through the 2016-17 school year. The timeline shows that the Next Generation standards should be fully implemented statewide in the 2017-18 school year, with newly designed NGSS assessments to be administered in the spring of that year.

In Moses Lake, Hernandez said a vertical team of instructors decided to pursue the opportunity to host engineering nights, like the one Tuesday at Garden Heights, throughout the district to help students get their feet wet in the engineering realm.

“In the Next Generation Science Standards, the disciplinary core idea that they are including is engineering,” Hernandez said. “So we just want students to get the feel of engineering and the word and the process, so that when we get the new kits, it won’t be something foreign to the students since they have had experience with engineering.”

The new standards use a “cross-cutting” approach, Hernandez said, in which students learn concepts from different disciplines simultaneously. For example, a science lesson may include bits of engineering, math and physical science, so students practice and learn in all three disciplines within the same lesson.

“What we want is for the students to see how engineering, math and science — they all work together,” Hernandez said. “Students are creative. They like to wonder about things, how things are put together (and) they like to take things apart. And that’s part of the NGSS that we are kind of moving into where we have disciplinary core ideas but we also have cross-cutting concepts and practices. So it’s a three-dimensional idea that we are wanting to kind of push for the district.”

The district is continuing to prepare teachers by providing professional development focusing on the NGSS. Hernandez said the hope is for all teachers to have some professional development come next school year so they have had to time to explore how the NGSS cross-cutting concepts can be put into practice with the current science kits.

“It’s a way of teaching and it's a way of learning,” Hernandez said.

Hundreds of students and their families attended the event at Garden Heights Tuesday, joining their peers at other schools who have experienced similar events. Feedback from parents and students so far has been very positive, Hernandez said, because it is evident that students are enjoying the activities and lessons.

Ryan Minnerly can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com.