Use the information in this scenario to answer the questions that follow: Natalia's teacher challenges her students to design a way to clean up oil spills. She gives the students a bowl of water with a small amount of oil on top. She tells them to use the bowl as a model to figure out a way to remove oil from ocean water while limiting the negative effects on the ocean’s ecosystem. Each group is to come up with three possible solutions and then test the solutions. They'll use the results from the tests to design a device to remove the oil from the ocean.

The first step to engineering is to define the problem. Write down the problem the students have to solve, and describe the challenges they will face when coming up with a solution.