It is often difficult to engage students, especially younger students, in authentic scientific inquiry. By authentic, the author means that the classroom activities are both good simulations of scientific inquiry as experienced by professional scientists and something that the students can relate to on an intuitive level. However, by engaging students in Design based Science, DBS does just that. Students can gain experience in DBS contexts that will support their forays into scientific inquiry, because they will already be knowledgeable and well-acquainted with many of the aspects of scientific inquiry. As examples of the DBS pedagogy, three ninth-grade units that were developed at the University of Michigan are described here.