Chapter XX : Engineering in / & / or / for Science Education

STEM: I don't know what it is, but I want one In various policy circles involving state governors, the US congress, or high tech industry leaders interested in education, there has been considerable recent excitement about increasing A very serious problem underlies this excitement. Most large companies depend primarily upon new product lines to generate their profits and the US has tied its self-identity to high tech innovation. At the same time, many countries in Europe and Asia have considerably increased their capacities for technological innovation, with some US firms now off-shoring the design work as well as manufacturing. Currently, approximately 90% of the world's engineers live in Asia, and a large, continually increasing proportion of the PhD engineers in the US grew up in Asia. In other words, the US economy and self-identity are at risk. How did we get here? Salient in everyone's mind is the regular poor showing US children have in international assessments of proficiency in mathematics and science, such as the