EWeek

Help Make Knowledge Workers a Renewable National Resource
Support: “Connecting Educators to Engineering”
by Patrica Welesko Garland

In January of 2004, the National Science Board issued a warning and a challenge. The warning concerned disturbing workforce trends that, if left unchecked, seriously threatened to erode America’s technological base. The challenge focused on America’s scientific, engineering and technical communities. NSB wanted to know what action, if any, we were prepared to take to help reverse that trend.

“America’s engine of growth,” NSB’s report said, “is fueled by our brightest engineers, scientists and advanced-degree technologists, a mere 5 percent of America’s 132-million-person workforce…. In the last 50 years, more than half of America’s sustained economic growth has come from this fantastic five percent.” But now, NSB said, our “fuel supply” appeared to be running low.

A Looming Shortage
American Colleges and universities were continuing to turn out the same percentage of scientists, engineers and advanced-degree technologists that they always had. But demand for such talent was rapidly outstripping the supply. The economy now creates new career opportunities for knowledge workers at a rate five times greater than the national average. However, our college engineering admission rates are low. And women, Hispanic and African-American college students, a potentially significant resource, remain disproportionately underrepresented in technically oriented degree programs.

“If we don’t figure out a way to refuel our science and engineering talent,” the report said, “America will lose our economic engine, our very base of power and prosperity and with it our capacity to shape our own future.”

NSB called for a collaborative, national outreach effort, led by science and engineering professionals, that would help modernize, expand and reenergize K-12 math and science studies. The goal would be to dramatize the value of math, science and technical training, in order to give it new immediacy and relevancy for students while they were still in the early stages of their academic careers.

Our Proposed Response
When the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) and Northrop Grumman Corporation became co-sponsors of Engineers Week 2006, we decided to respond to NSB’s challenge. A new project, “Connecting Educators to Engineering” was born.

From the outset, we wanted “Connecting Educators to Engineering” to make a lasting, positive impact on the education system. Where prior outreach efforts had focused directly on students, influencing the lives of tens of thousands, “Connecting Educators to Engineering” would be different. It would form new relationships with tens of thousands of teachers, guidance counselors and school administrators. In that way, we hoped to influence the future academic paths of millions of students.

For added impact, we focused on the middle school years – the formative period researchers had determined to be pivotal to the development of future math, science and technology majors.

In concept, “Connecting Educators to Engineering” is simple. Working scientists, engineers and advanced-technologists contact local middle school educators to:

build engineering concepts into the existing curriculum
develop new technical curricula
serve as role models for students
speak to classes about the true nature of modern engineering work and the realities of the engineering workplace
organize after class activities and field trips
and serve as technical resources and advisors

Gradually, the program breathes new life into academic programs. Public and private school students upgrade their math and science skills. And successive generations of Americans select ever-broader technically oriented academic pursuits.

In practice, though, nothing is ever that simple. Volunteers need training in effective outreach techniques. They need access to appropriate and effective classroom materials, information and communication networks and much more. And finally, they need an organizational structure capable of helping them achieve the program’s goals during a weeklong national launch window.

A Four-Part Program
Everyone connected with EWeek 2006 has been busy, in recent months, creating the necessary infrastructure for success. The program we developed contains four essential elements. These include a successful model for our outreach efforts, volunteer training, a dynamic information exchange center and building blocks for new classroom curricula. Volunteers will find them all online at www.eweek2006.org .

Structure. “Introduce a Girl to Engineering” serves as the organizational model. Volunteers can either reach out to local middle schools in the months before EWeek 2006 or on “Connect Day,” which will be on Wednesday, February 22, 2006.

Training. In coming weeks, the Eweek website will host a series of live, training web casts designed to prepare volunteers for every facet of the outreach effort. Once broadcast, these webinars will be available for online access or downloading prior to the EWeek launch.

Communications. To promote communications between participants, the EWeek website also will host an electronic forum offering educator-to-educator and educator-to-engineer dialogue. We will activate the forum in January 2006 and continue it through April 30, near the end of the school year. Two moderators will supervise each discussion group.

Resources. In addition to ready-made letters of introduction (for use by engineer volunteers), the EWeek 2006 website also will provide links to curricula materials of interest to engineers and educators. Special emphasis will be given to:

Materials developed by EWeek member societies, corporate sponsors and educational organizations
Gender-specific materials
Materials appropriate for after-school programs
Links to relevant research that would support classroom activities

The Key Ingredient
Only one element is missing from this mix, and it is the most critical. For “Connecting Educators to Engineering” to succeed, it will require the active support of every stakeholder individual and organization. As SWE’s co-chair for EWeek 2006, I am proud to have played a part in bringing this extraordinary opportunity for meaningful community outreach to our profession. But I will be prouder still, when EWeek 2006 meets its ambitious goal of reaching 15,000 middle school educators from coast to coast.

The relationships we have an opportunity to forge will benefit our local communities, our nation, our children, our grandchildren and generations yet unborn. This is the time to pull out all the stops. Each of us needs to rally our fellow engineers to answer this call to service. We need to actively engage our professional societies in the effort. Our corporate sponsors need to champion this program as well by creating internal incentives for participation.

We must remember that “Connecting Educators to Engineering” gives us an opportunity to build more than a bridge between knowledge workers and knowledge teachers. It represents our chance to build a lasting bridge to the future.