in this microphone sound very loud too loud to me good morning and welcome to the research and science education subcommittee hearing on engineering in k through twelve education today will explore the concept of pre college injuring education even though i was trained as an engineer this is something that's fairly new to me simply because it was not formally around when i was in school we on the committee are dedicated to improving stem education this country and are always exploring new ideas that have the potential to have a positive impact on student learning and achievement in stem fields this year alone we have held three hearings on k through twelve stem education but those are focused primarily on science and math and we have yet to examine the small but growing movement in k p twelve engineering education today we'll hear from witnesses who are involved in engineering education in a variety of capacities i look forward to hearing the witnesses explain the current models initiative for teaching engineering in a case of twelve setting to what extent these efforts have been successful in teaching engineering concepts and perhaps most importantly how they might be use improve student learning in all stem fields we are fortunate to have a new report on the subject from national academy of engineering and the national research council i hope discussing this report will help us understand what questions remain unanswered and what research might need to be conducted finally i'm interested in learning more today about how pre college engineering education might broaden the stem pipeline by helping to make stem law tangible and exciting to students from all backgrounds i want to thank all the witnesses for taking the time to appear before to stop me this morning and i look forward to your chairman and actually i like this cozy room we may have to pull in a few extra chairs or you have to take people on your lap or something like that but any rate would be fun fun session here  today's hearing will look at what we know and what we need to know about bolstering k twelve engineering education and i've become known as the great pusher of stem education here in generic is definitely a part of stem education it's a fact if you count the letters it's one fourth of the package but it basically unique challenges in the classroom and i'm very pleased that the witnesses are here today that are going to help us understand what that unique place is what the unique challenges are that are faced i happen to be a great believer in using engineering in the elementary schools and if i had my druthers the federal government would give  free set of tinkertoys and lincoln logs to every child born in this country male or female and get them started off right from the start engineering is nothing but making things work making things out of materials that are at hand that you can make into useful devices that work and i can think of a more valuable skill for students to learn in school regardless of whether or not they go into engineering but if they don't explore math science engineering in elementary school they almost certainly not going to take the advanced placement courses in high school so they don't take the advanced player courses in high school when they get to the university they find well if they want to become an engineer they're going to spend at least one extra year there to make up time and so what student wants to do that especially when they're faced in the freshman year and so suddenly we've lost an engineer just because the elementary schools have not and still that excitement of discovery the excitement of putting things together and making it work when the students were younger i suspect that many innovative teachers have been including engineering in their classrooms for many years and it's our job collectively in this committee to tap that knowledge that's out there and you're going to be important challenge today and in helping us begin that occasion  to us i hope that we can really get something started here we have so many forward thinking ideas on this committee but if you don't start with a good idea and you don't push it you're not going to get anywhere and that's our effort here today thank you for participating and thank you for your interest and i  if there are members who wish to submit additional opening statements your statements will be added to the record at this point at this time i'd like to introduce our witnesses or if we have dr lind is chair of the national academy of engineering committee and a k through twelve engineering education and chancellor of the university of california davis dr thomas peterson is the assistant director for engineering at the national science always is the president director of museum of science boston and the founding director of the national center for technological literacy dr daryl pines is dean and professor of engineering at the a james clark school of engineering at the university of maryland college park i'll now yield to ranking member hall to introduce our fifth and final witness ordinary students like me to you but i'd like to thank all the witnesses here today and my basic job is to introduce favorite witness and some of my folks might in the audience but i respect all of you for the dedication of strengthening k twelve stem education and specifically k twelve engineering education our nation's always has you know been the leader in cutting edge innovation our young children and grandchildren are the key to our success how we inspire them and how we keep them inspired as they continue their education are very critical questions in a much say on behalf of the chairman thing in the morning so but everything you test to be put into writing by a court reporter there goes into the books and every member of congress will read it so you not just find a  couple members and there are groups sometimes it's hard to grasp a seven or eight year old can understand engineering but when you put it in terms of tollways with which they play and see them lined up with excitement and even is i was excited to learn that silly putty was invented by chemical engineer trying to find a rubber substitute mechanical engineer invented the slinky when he saw a spring saw fall off of a table in a basic water gun was transformed into a popular super soaker max the six thousand giant water blaster they say by nasa a mechanical engineer you know mud now and mr chairman to bring it more home my son one of my sons cut my garden hose into and had it wrapped around his arm was running it around like that and i whipped him with the rest of the garden hose three years later they came out with a hula hoop you know never say anything that successful see successful people here that are just fine for us today and we're very grateful to the plot of the subcommittee for taking up this school district he along with a lot of others including texas independent school district superintendent james henry russell here city manager larry sullivan former superintendent and his wife rose and stripling provost of texas a and then and the marsh family were instrumental in the construction and development of the state of art morris elementary in two thousand and six not bart garden was with me there when we honored them and recognize that some time ago and it's specifically on elementary engineering and mathematics not a place to see the national academy study quote engineering in k twelve education unquote also recognizes a marsh that was a model hopefully it can be replicated in other towns said bill for a similar experience i must say and welcome to washington and thank you for being here and for your willingness to share your maurice elementary experiences with us i look forward to learning more about it and believe that my colleagues  yield back my time if i've got any so thank you for your thank you always for your contributions as our witnesses should know you each will have five minutes for your spoken testimony your written testimony will be included in the record for the hearing when you all have completed your spoken testimony will begin with questions each member will have five minutes to question the panel so we will start the testimony here with  like to start by noting that our study was motivated by several factors one was a desire to get a handle on what is happening nationally regarding efforts to introduce indian eating into k to twelve classrooms for example how many kids and teachers have taken part in these initiatives what impact have various programs head on student learning what is the relationship between engineering and the other stem subjects and other motivator engineering so that the subcommittee has some sense of what i mean when i use that term where the science can be thought of as a process of discovering what is engineering is a process used to create something new something useful typically a technological product a process or a service in the report we call engineering design under constraint these constraints include the laws of nature engineers cannot design anything that violates those laws but they also include other things such as resource availability environmental impact manufacturability time deadlines government regulations political realities and ethical considerations the engineering design process relies heavily on science and mathematics and engineers work collaboratively with scientists technicians and many others often in education in the us in the real world over he says and technology development science technology engineering and mathematics are not isolated from one another are committed wondered then why th subject should continue to be isolated or siloed when thought that schools to begin moving down the path toward integration the committee recommends that the national science foundation support research acted eyes or define stem literacy including how much literacy my develop over the course of a student's k twelve school experience and major the element of our study involved reviewing at present but we found that the connection is not systematically emphasized to improve learning in both domains similarly mathematical analysis in modeling other sensory evidence in eating design but very few  professional development initiatives we reviewed use mathematics in ways that support modeling and analysis to address these shortcomings the committee recommends that the national science foundation or the u s department of evidence for benefit relates to improved to than learning and achievement in mathematics and science but engineering education to become a more mainstream component of k twelve education the committe believes there will have to be much more and much higher quality outcomes based data to these sen we recommend that foundations and federal agencies with an interest in k through twelve engineering education engineering or in other technical fields where we normally call the pipeline or started determine that these are professional development opportunities for k twelve engineering are seriously lacking th awfully eighteen thousand teachers we estimate who have received some training to teach engineering have almost all but dissipated in in service initiatives associated with existing curricula we a formal could then chilling process the committee concluded that lack of gender and ethnic diversity is an issue for k to twelve engineering education just as it is an issue for the engineering workforce least the options ad hoc confusion stand alone courses and interconnected stem education these approaches would fall along a continuum in terms of ease of implementation i described in than to calculate the nation's investment in k through twelve entering indication it is clear however that the greater spending over time has been on curriculum development and much mud small amount has been devoted to research on conservation and education they will always be also become better citizens and our country will greatly benefit from them integrated stem education could improve teaching and learning in order for subjects but read using excessive expectations for k to twelve stem teaching and learning these does not mean that teaching should be dumbed down but rather that the chicken learning in few ikey stem a d s could be deepened and then more time should be spent on the development of a set of penske ranking member a loose and distinguished members of the subcommittee on research and science education i want to thank you for inviting me to participate in this hearing on and during and k twelve education i'm thomas petersen the assistant director for engineering at the national science foundation every student who takes either the s a t or the a c t college entrance exam is asked to indicate the discipline of study that they intend to pursue after graduation from high school the fraction of total test takers who intend to pursue engineering declined from seven point seven percent in one thousand nine hundred four to four point six percent in two thousand and six as a former engineering dean i along with my colleagues dr all either current or former engineering teams themselves have first hand experience with the challenges of finding a diverse and qualified pipeline of domestic students interested in pursuing the study of engineering the introduction of basic engineering concepts in pre college curricula even in the elementary and middle schools can be an important factor in addressing these challenges and sharing education in the kate twelve curriculum holds promise to encourage student learning in fundamental science and mathematics to raise the level of understanding and awareness of engineering and what engineers do to stimulate interest in a rapidly changing demographic population to pursue careers in engineering and to increase the basic technological literacy for all of our citizens in other words far from being an additional burden for schools engineering education in the kate twelve environment is an enabler for motivating students to learn other aspects of the curriculum as well the key to inclusion of engineering in the kate twelve curriculum is the emphasis on the elementary principles of engineering design it illustrates the importance and application of basic science and mathematics principles it stimulates creativity within students it encourages them to work in partnership with other students because design is fundamentally a team based activity it helps to develop communication skills as students work together and describe their work to each other and even most a platform for the consideration of important social environmental and ethical issues at the national science foundation the engineering and the education and human resources director it's a partner to numerous k twelve activities for example we've teamed to support a g k twelve fellowship program at the university of colorado boulder and these fellows work with skyline high school and long want to bring highly interactive hands on engineering projects into the classroom another partnership supports design squad the p b s reality competition series with an a companying outreach campaign and website designed to inspire a new generation of engineers the series is making a special effort to reach out to girls and minorities groups that are critically under represented engineering as we all know the engineering is elementary project developed by the national center for technological literacy within with n s f support holds promise to reach very deeply into elementary schools throughout the nation and it's also noteworthy and reassuring that support for engineering in k twelve education extends beyond government agencies like the n s f in one thousand nine hundred two first robotics an extracurricular program was launched in new hampshire under the visionary leadership of dean cayman while he receives support from n s f in the early stages of that competition first robotics is now supported by industry partners and over two thousand high schools in the us and a significant number of first alumni are now studying in engineering colleges in summary the f is not about providing long term and sustained funding for programs we provide the support for new ideas new curricula new approaches to engineering education and educational pedagogy we provide the support for targeted programs in schools and institutions with new and creative ideas the challenge is twofold first we must find the support to continue programs develop under an s s bonds or ship once and less of support is no longer provided and second we must find the means to financially support the dissemination of these best ideas develop through anis of support to a much broader range of institutions and schools the suggestion this concludes my remarks and be happy to answer any questions following the testimony hundred three i was then the dean of the school of engineering at tufts university and now my passion continues as president director of the museum of science in boston we claim that science is a discipline that teaches children about the world around but i would like you to take a look at this room and tell me how many of the things you see around you are natural things and how many are human made and i would argue that about ninety eight percent of the world around us is human made if you look at the science curriculum in schools it's primarily focused on the natural world so it captures pretty much two percent over the world of the children and we live about ninety eight percent so understanding one hundred percent of the world around us i would argue is basically this is not an extra so the collage of the literacy is basically the same but there are a few other more reasons why engineering should be part of the formal curriculum engineering offers a wonderful vehicle for problem solving and project based learning pulling all the other disciplines together bringing them to life it brings in particular math and science to life and make them relevant and we will know that the relevance in science is what attracts retains girls in science if you look at the science fields that women gravitate are the ones that truly benefit their work like medicine veterinary medicine life sciences environmental engineering also by introducing engineering into school this will ensure that we have a technological literate and diverse workforce seven out of ten u s engineers have had their relative that's an engineer so it's other parents that mentor their kids or their relatives to become engineers and that popular television does not help either because although there are wonderful popular shows that glorify wonderful profession such as law and medicine there are no real engineers in popular t v to encourage kids to go to engineering actually the only engineer these days in prime t v is homer simpson from the simpsons the cartoon which is unfortunate by introducing a junior ng as a main discipline kids of all ethnic groups would know what it is and they can choose or not to children at mr simon school actually in texas they are using our curriculum and we have also middle school and in high school engineering curriculum this is all standards based research based engineering curriculum that integrates mathematics and  so there's the lack of resources there's concern over lack of time to teach engineering well our children spend about a month during middle school learning how a volcano works in the spend no time learning how a car works how much time do you have expendable can a compared to a car in your life and why should we spend a month learning about volcanoes and no time learning about cars and don't take me wrong i think all gamers are a wonderful way to teach plate tectonics which is very important for children to learn states planning grants to figure out how they would introduce engineering in their formal standards and assessments implementation grants after they have the plan down of how they're going to do it to actually support funding teacher professional development  engineering i'm going to thank you for inviting me the car school attracts a large number of outstanding young people from the highly regarded maryland school system and also the maryland private school system as well as from excellent schools across the country and around the world in fact we have created an array of programs to interest these younger students in engineering and develop insights concerning the inclusion of engineering concepts and approaches in their pre college education one simple but important insight is the following fact and k through twelve engineering education proper pacing and mentorship  crucial by engaging students at the proper level at the proper time with the proper mentors schools going to sure that students are neither intimidated by the difficulties of engineering nor deluded that engineering means dreaming up ideas about creating analyzing testing and refining the solution using math and science with proper pacing and mentors we can inspire students with engineering potential for a positive impact in the world while beginning to train them in the skills they will need to make that impact  university programs must do a better job of educating high school and middle school teachers about the field of engineering academic requirements for engineering students as well and the proper level of engineering concepts to include in their lesson plans to answer the first question that posed by the committee a successful undergraduate engineering student to graduate the following attributes number one high awareness of the areas in which engineering can impact our quality of life number two time spent in direct work and one or more of the areas through related research internships or volunteer service programs number three the entrepreneurial skills and confidence to organize and launch an initiative even a company and one of those areas number four the ability to solve open ended problems by employing engineering math its mathematics and the sciences number five the ability to focus on a problem and imagine one or more ways of solving number six a strong work ethic and the ability to learn autonomously number seven skills in communicating with professionals and laypeople and number eight the ability to work alone or in teams or to lead when necessary to ensure that undergraduates possess the skills and attributes on graduating from college and increase the number who do graduate much first ensure that high school students come to us but that's in all of the skills and some part and to some degree and the last five to high degree a useful example of the boundary between high school and college is a project that is commonly implement in high school science or engineering courses that is the making of a truss bridge in high school students will  bridge based on how they think it should look how they think and they can make it stronger rely and really on their experience and their intuition this is appropriate for high school or middle school however in the mechanics class in college students will learn the concepts of stress and strain  loading material properties and other concepts that allow them to design the truss then build it rather than simply putting something together to see how it stands up to a load this is expected and appropriate for students entering college in response to question to pre college engineering education can inspire students with the potential of engineering to prove to improve our world and prepare them for the challenges of the university engineering program first schools must identify students who are proficient in mathematics and science without proficiency students cannot succeed in the field of engineering next schools must show students how they may apply that proficiency through engineering in fields such as energy cybersecurity health care transportation homeland security space flight communications and so on provides the spark of excitement so that students begin to know what engineering really matters and what matters in engineering it also allows them to be creative and important highly satisfied an aspect of engineering middle school is indeed the right time to even some of these very basic applications of engineering but too early to do more rigorous engineering type classes the four years of high school or the right time for this type of training making engineering electives available in each of the four years would be appropriate for high school and respons question three the clock school delivers k through twelve programs during the academic year and the summer our center for minorities in science and engineering offers two academic year programs i'll just highlight them right now this team program brings the students together with a faculty mentor in a year long research project their research practicum for high school students our maryland mathematics engineering and science achievement program also refer to mesa engages students instead of the academy's summer programs an in service an after school enrichment programs are additional lead academies are offered there are women in engineering program they introduce female students to one of our academic programs such as aerospace engineering or bioengineering or electrical and computer engine engineering using demonstrations and hands on projects evaluate a valuation of the program effect and this is very challenging for all of our k through twelve stem programs we do have in fact case by case evidence that students who participate in these particular programs become more positive about engineering and actually enroll in our school regarding partnerships we have identified the top twenty five maryland high schools that send us the greatest number of engineering students and propose a stronger partnership with the schools and opportunities for students to gauge and engineering activities training for teachers and the scholarships we have also produced summer programs for high school stem teachers they witness presentations they do hands on projects to our facilities and speak with our faculty all to enhance their understanding of engineering and encourage them to take their new knowledge back to their students our next day it's the part where the college of education to ensure that teachers can be certified in engineering education in parallel we're meeting with the maryland state department of education stem coordinator to explore ways if that was closer cooperation between our two organizations you what our campus looks like in the act of the second place the ideal ideal for the school began with a group of citizens educators engineers and business leaders under the leadership of then superintendent larry sullivan and president  am university tax kana dr stephen hadley determine that a high priority for the task in area was a some how close the gap between supply demand for professionals in engineering and mathematics careers so was warned the collaborative between texas a and m university through sixteen type plan which would expose children to engineering concepts and careers at an early age we attempt to raise the bar of excellence about requiring higher standards for our students and our teachers artistic provides the funds for the course work and there's no cost the teacher as long as the teacher remains with the district for four years after completing the course work teachers who already have a masters degree must also complete for additional courses of math along with two curriculum design and delivery courses teachers are then qualified to take the master of mathematics teacher certification examination t s t provides continuous professional development and stem education through workshops offered through its instructional services department plus the american society of engineering education offers a free workshop to stem educators each year some art teachers attended in in austin in two thousand and nine plan on retiring in the summer two thousand and ten in louisville kentucky are correct them coach meets on a regular basis in planning sessions with  teachers with much input from the educators engineers along with a donation of ten point six acres of land by the morris family the construction of a new album a school became reality we have been very fortunate that we made with the design a physical plant which enhances the delivery engineering curriculum offering some unique features not normally found in elementary schools some of these unique features include exposed color coded pipes clear wall panels and clear ceiling tiles which allow students to view the duct work wiring and other pipes to show  there is a path of everything that comes to them somebody had to design it put in place and maintain it also we use a regular shape classrooms located in pots setting that also has a common area the data cabinets also wiring is exposed in one in each classroom we have a clear case computer there's also clear tile area and interest each pod that shows pipes and rebar that's located in the foundation we design each class like a lab and so that just having one lap or a pod we use tables instead asking or to provide hands on activity space for teachers to use we also have students work in process in groups corporate groups to work together a research and design center is used to promote instruction teachers facilitating inquiry based learning which they tap into to students natural interest in problem solving classroom to equip state of the art technology and equipment and his teachers create a learning environment where learners assume the engineering period first period and then we integrate the engineering concepts of that period into the other subjects whenever possible in an attempt to avoid this science fair mentality where the parents do the projects at home an incentive the school fair want to mar we hold at least three engineering counters per year these engineering canners give parents the opportunity to view and participate in engineering activities with the students our students love robotics in addition today the robotics activities our students like to compete in robotics competitions so far we've competed at the university of texas dallas and also the university of texas at tyler we strive to share the arena with our other schools and school districts by giving tours or facilities and by inviting educators to visit our classrooms we also believe in the ripple or the  effect which means that we are willing to share strategies that work at mars with teachers at our other campuses in our district in reality we realize that not all four hundred students at mars will choose careers in engineering however we feel that if they can learn the process of learning like an engineer then they can use this process of learning where garza which feel they go into this process includes the steps of imagine plan design improve and share which we took adapted from engineering is elementary our students are encouraged to continue their study of engineering and mathematics after they leave mars by enrolling in engineering and mathematics academy at our texas middle school and then they are taking entering courses at our tech at our high school at texas high and then to go into texas a and m university texarkana to major in engineering completing a k through sixteen journey martin josh marshall mathematics and engineering elementary school is a great place for kids to explore and learn we don't have all the answers but we do feel like the bicycle has beg start out by asking dr peterson in this in this hearing here what's the current level of support of n s f funded research in other activities and k through twelve engineering let me first of all begin talking about the investment that the director for education human resources has made in two thousand and eight about nine million dollars and in two thousand and nine about twenty three million dollars in k twelve engineering projects were supported by h r these came in a in a variety of programs and i can provide you those specific details with exact dollar amounts but just generally speaking they were the g k twelve program the nice program the math science progress ship program the discovery for research into a twelfth and small amounts and others other programs within the engineering directorate in two thousand and eight we invested approximately thirteen million dollars and in two thousand and nine about fifteen million dollars in k twelve engineering education projects and some of these were in partnership with h primarily through areas of support provided this level of support for engineering education the are you teaching or research experience for teachers program the g k twelve program which provides opportunities for engineering graduate students to interact with local schools and the educational component for our engineering research program i think sometimes people who are very familiar who are only superficially familiar with our engineering research centers think that their primary focus and sir focus is on engineering research but an important component of all of these centers is an outreach and education element and they often involve interactions with teachers and local school districts and provide them mechanisms to bring engineering concepts into their classroom so approximately eight or nine million dollars over those two years was supported through the r e t program about seven and a half million dollars from the g k twelve program and about seven million dollars from the engineering research centers and again i can provided that the other details in the smaller programs of for the record thank you and i as i said we do partner in the number of projects i think this is a bit of a generalization but but the support that comes from e h r primarily focuses on issues related to pedagogy  and the support that comes from the engineering directorate focuses more on the specific engineering content aspects ok i have one thing i threw out there i'm not going to wait till second round to get in the questions but i just want to sort of put put this out the think about maybe this will come up and i'll get back to it is the definition of engineering which is sort of where i started when thinking about the hearing because i remember when i got a undergrad degree in mechanical engineering got a master's at stanford program called engineering economic systems and when i was in this program at stanford and i had never thought about what is the definition of engineering i thought it was a thought about the multiple different fields and how they are applied how methods are applied but at that point i was taught engineering is problem solving but i think what you define is what in your ng is has an impact and we're talking about engineering in k through twelve and what can be done in what is defined as teaching engineering there so i'm just going to leave it at that and i come back to it on the second round of questions with my time is up son you know recognize that to have a little resentment against you for stealing petty curtis away from from us and making your spend part of our time in boston that she's been very effective in in our state efforts here and we appreciate her serving on the board that we've put together also quick comment on homer simpson probably the reason that homer's and engineers as least i've been told by physicist friends that the simpsons was started by two physicist expanding and allowing math and science partnership grants to apply to engineering and for so we have two types of math and science partnership grants to the national science foundation as one type i wasn't aware that that these grants excluded engineering that i misunderstand you on that or this grant and this is a it general challenge we have with in focus specifically on math and science teachers and a math and science ought the city and the get dropped out most times unintentionally but once they are not in the rules then as the money is go to the states the states allocate the money only for m so new legislation specifically spell out that curriculum in technology engineering should be supported as well as professional development of technology education teachers and hopefully in the future engineering teachers yeah ok i presume that was the case but i thought i was instrumental in putting his programs together and if are missing something than we have to work on that and this time it's difficult to get another bill passed but we might be able to do something to the appropriations process thank you for coming and then also just a quick response from each of the witnesses i just wonder how you know that this idea of technological literacy is often discussed how would you see that as relating to the k twelve engineering cation that we're talking about here we'll just go down the line very briefly please for me to the ability to learn and engineering and so designed specifically in a young get aids and experiences that allow the kids to learn how to make things that are useful will help them also develop respect in the dystonia of technology and how technology impacts quality of life and no said this then the various aspects of it and that's what we call th take he said i think if you focus on again the the primary elements of engineering is folded into an elementary or middle school curriculum focusing on design the basic concept is to teach problem solving skills and with it with a focus on the engineering case on design aspects but it's i think it's something that is a clickable to to anyone and helps them understand the technological aspects whether they're going into engineering or not i think using that curricular approach would be beneficial for me all this what brings science to life in the classroom is engaging the kids in the way that scientists think the in they use it every day my daughter this is an eighth grader my son's a sixth grader they know more about technology than i do they know how to use it at least but they don't know where it came from so first is asking the hard question how was this made as not to be all let's mention ninety  percent of the things in this room were made by in some sense engineers are designed and it's really making that connection that they can actually do that they can at that's the first question is this thing that you're using which is a mobile wireless device how is it made what are the issues that actually lead to making this just fundamentally connecting something to gen the gen y generation that actually uses this device very frequently today and doesn't know how it's made and i think that's part of just the first step of technological literacy and then yes the process the analysis design tools and how you think about solving the problem to get to that type of device i think we have to ask the first basic question mr simon i get what i can certainly say in experience in thirty years that  today's students we call on the digital natives were the digital immigrants we they teach us but anything that we can do on its hands own any volves anything to do with technology they are just like fish in the water when they can when they learn about robotics that there's nothin magic about that robot that it has to do with sensors of sound in different different sensors motion and they have better understanding of  he really hit on something good let me just briefly come in and that my wife is an excellent cook an excellent baker she had to assume those duties in her home which is twelve years old because her mother passed away early and  she taught all of our children to learn and i'd like to point out that's that's really at a type of engineering to taking complements putting them together experimenting my wife she doesn't look at recipes very often she just likes to experiment and she's very good at it if you'd you know if i could give you some brownies that would make you come back for more i think that's that attitude you know if we can convey that to kids experiment try different things whether it's in the kitchen or in the basement or whatever that's what we're really getting at here let the kids learn how to experiment at an early age and build things constructively out of the materials available thank  thank all of the witnesses for coming this has been a passion of mine for a long time now and i'm not sure how well we're doing in her school and in dallas texas in my district is doing very well but there's only about twenty percent of the students in a dallas independent school district so i guess what i need all of you to comment on is how do you get kids past the fear for sixth grade and keep that interest in these areas know that early on they seem to be easy to attract but going through the six or the seventh grade interest seems to wane our committee spoke i discussed that very extensively and we came to believe that there is a lot a great opportunity in starting the kids early thinking about problem solving and about design and they can do that with simple things when you start talking about design you can build simple stuff that make make you do things that you cannot do before and then the kids even in a very early age before they go to kindergarten they can learn how to build things and they can learn how to optimize they can learn how to solve a problem and then you can lay it on that the learning of math and science so then math and science become relevant because they become the tools towards solving something to was doing something that works and that direct feedback helps skied learn and then makes them like technology and then eventually a lot of these kids will select math and science as a profession but they're learning should start early not that fifth grade it's too late many of the g right right representative johnson i think this is a it is a very important question and it illustrates the i think the challenge that we have unfolding engineering concepts into the curriculum of finding material that's appropriate at each grade level or as dr kathy mentioned types of projects that would interest and encourage students in the elementary and middle schools who would be different from from from one grade level to the next so the challenge really is to find those types of projects that would would appeal to students at each grade level to maintain their interest i also believe that the relevance is there is the key if you look at the science like the middle school they have nothing to do with the day to day life of children and if we can connect them with the real problems that they're working teams to solve the only goal becomes relevant and i would argue that engineering should not be the last science this is going to be taught in the school i would argue should be the first so in ninth grade everybody starts with engineering realizing how you need math and science to solve the problems and then getting hooked on math and science i would like to comment on  earlier cooking example when i was at tufts we created a whole curriculum to retain entering students which stand out of our personal hobbies and interests and i used to teach a cooking class which was use eat he transferred principles through cooking and the experiments were in the real kitchen laboratory it was a very popular class and because of this curriculum that we developed we became and still is probably the only engineering school where more students transfer from liberal resident johnson i think one of our challenges an engineer is that we have a marketing challenge to the kids of today and the kids are the future i might argue with your definition of engineering i always tell kids in high school middle school the engineers create a world that never has been for the betterment benefit of society scientists study the world as it is to help understand and understand the society but engineers credit were never has been so i try to link that how kids can get excited in engineering and so one of the challenges as i mentioned in my remarks is that i believe we need to make the links for them make it very simple another way to do it is to link middle school kids with elementary schools as mentors high school kids as mentors to middle school kids provide the continuum of what they may see in high school what they may see in the middle school why they should stay interested in math and science how it relates to real problems making those links and letting our young people work for us as a work for future is what we do not have such a mentoring national program that we could easily leverage and make it happen our member our that's human capital our kids our kids our kids in college our kids in high school in our kids in middle school to help the lower levels so i think those links are important to make the and an international paper you know we don't have local students that are going to engineer and coming back we're hiring people that don't live in our area and when we don't have a good supply and then we  make sure we have students coming up through the pipeline where they can have those courses and the enough students to take the courses in engineering so we started we said well we need to beef it up in middle school and high school but we were already had two courses in high school we have two groups have gone left arsenal and gone to the middle school and one thing that has taken place are miller school we've beefed up our robotics because we weren't offering that is at the middle school two years ago and now our children are going over that we're in that in this very much my time is expired but i want to say that the rest of these people had accents but honest in which you now recognizes mr hall for five minutes third i didn't know that sam out asking for some money for me we got a glimpse of the marcel mattress today before school here and last time but i think the committee might be interested in you know what a third a forty five minute lunch and then fifty minutes activity period an hour and a half on mathematics and then social studies give us an idea that forty five minutes typical forty five minutes and you're narrowing time blo subjects that are there if you found in any elementary school we do teach a specific period of engineering in the mornings we had it first period because the kids work on a team and they like to be there on the projects especially  point where they put the projects together to share in so they can have peer pressure to be there on time so let's cut down our tardies a little bit and that's that's a good thing you know hurry up mom get me to school so we do take it to the template and lay it down on the other subjects throughout the school day for example the six weeks we're in civil engineering in in kindergarten they're making some tunnels out of cardboard boxes they also get a paper towel cone  they have to design it where they can drive it will pour through we pour water in in a container and water comes out into the in the tunnel then they have to go back and improve stage and the more duct tape on it they say so period and then as they move on through the day in math class they can when the teacher goes over geometric shapes they might recall that the triangular shape was probably the strongest of the other shapes they used they understand what iran angle is they understand  use that they use that information in their in their their math what was done in engineering for the six weeks they also might have to create a budget for the tower they know make sure they're in the budget of building it so they have to worry about  you know decimals you know working with decimals i might be teaching decimals that day and working with money in science they might talk about the nature and the forces of when the earthquake movement of the ground and that sort of man no shortage was moved on to the rest of the day  integrate the engineering concepts in the rest of your subjects during the school day and in the child contact it all together and hears it again in a different in a different way as to just trying to repeat it in drilling keil i warned ask you it's a little about the demographics of the student population i'd like to know more about cost and lack of funding that we hear that appear all the time here from nasa norm augustine's own on the hill today that tell us  students see a red light over there should be pretty quick well it's not a ten and some schools so everybody makes application to come three years ago when we were planning we didn't know who was going to elementary school we didn't want to go in and recruit kids out at the other price will be howling mad at me they would think i try to take all the good kids all are good teachers you know how to compare they are so we didn't really know how mean we're going to have we signed up everyone from k through five that first year of the year prior to opening in two thousand and seven we went out three years to go to the restaurant kindergarten chilled because we want to make sure we had enough in the pipeline and we had plenty so this is our third year we just started two thousand and nine and this is our last year of the students we are few years back so this year we're going to a lottery system to where they had they had two weeks to sign up about two and a half weeks to sign  students we have about male and female is amazing it's you know we didn't go in and try to do this we have two hundred three females and hundred ninety seven males and it just just there's a stat roger just fail you know fifty fifty right down the line just about we have about twenty three percent or fifteen percent economic disadvantage we have we found though this is a way that  we get more students back into our district the middle class that was leaving our district urban districts are now coming back in because of what we're offering and then we put all of our students together a great six so it's really building way of doing professional development or engineering different from what we have now for for science and math is something that we have to nearly develop so i want to throw that question out there who wants to  thank you yes we need to have a defense set of programs that will prepare teachers for teaching engineering design in the classroom and engineering colleges need to take ownership in this regard so our committee identified the need then also requested that the american association for engineering schools starts a national dialogue to that effect and then trying to find ways to get  in partnership with colleges of education to provide the course content technical content for the engineering took me off at the elementary school level i believe that the school of education to collaborate with engineering schools to you have anything to add just wanted to say that and then the college of engineering around the united states or at least four colleges as we as a currently stands i have programs in engineering education there regina tech i was stayed and i produced i can't remember the last one clemson thank you and they have instituted graduate programs and engineering education which they are in some cases interfacing with colleges of education so that some of the people that come out of these programs will not  faculty at universities but actually go into k through twelve education to help stimulate educating teachers in the field of it in the art of engineering which i think it's great but i think more needs to be done so in terms of answer your question the answer is yes we do need a separate program for engineering educators that encourages colleges of engineering to interface with colleges of education to get more certified teachers engine earing of the in the stem words because we do the science in the math really well we're not doing the very well thank you the ad just at the elementary level we have found over the years and most of our teachers earn well versed in the language arts in the reading area not so well in the mathematics and most engineers will be if we ask them what can we do it on any level to help with engineering  say teach as much math as you can so we would like to see more mathematics in the teacher preparation program we certainly the interested in any in top engineering hand in the teacher program we would saying top ongoing professional development we have found the best model for us is to make sure it's something that is sustainable ongoing and that it's accountable that we have to go back in and make sure that we're doing what we said with the thank you and it may have heard the bells there i mean we are the boats society of engine earing education better known as a c should begin a national dialogue on preparing k twelve engineering teachers to address the very different needs and circumstances of elementary and secondary teachers in the the colleges the individual colleges in the universities need to take on a sip of that as well otherwise it's not going to happen i spoke to a group of university presidents over years ago and one of them asked the question well what can we do make this brief so that mr hall can get his question in but you know there's a lot of focus on middle school and high school for developing the engineering connection but my opinion as an engineer in both mechanical and industrial engineering majors has that you have to start earlier than that in the elementary setting and the expertise of math is critically important and how do we build not only the human infrastructure but how do we design the the construct of education so that there is teamwork done in building projects which is the workplace of today and certainly of the future and how do we inspire that that whole response of mathematics in the elementary setting that gets pas fractions as a fear factor and gets passed equations as it does just fun things i think we can do in the elementary setting if we don't start there the fear of math and science if you avoid it the silent fear is just going to continue how can we put the end of the project and this of course funded this project books and its book focuses on a child from a different part of the world the child talks about her community and the child and the community face so the little girl from india which is a hero one of the book talks about quality of drinking water the challenge of called of digging water now and how an environmental engineer in the town saved the town by building a filtration system then we engage the kids with a teacher in building a filtration system in the classroom so through storytelling world culture connecting the committee spoke about this obviously there is a great opportunity when we start this early and there is something else we need to take into account that the brain learns in a very sensory way when the kids are very young and then we  that and we got very upset jacked learning and we start memorizing tables and we leave away the reasons we do that and the kids cannot make that connection so if we go back to bed early aides even before kindergarten and start thinking on through from kindergarten and here we give everybody has an opportunity a job to perform and everybody has a responsibility early and we give them open ended problem and they go about solving it and they they learn by discovery basically you know we want to continue that as much we can and that's that's the area that we really need help all from getting that training for our staff but you're setting is particularly focused on math and engineering your elementary school you know it's focus only engineering and mathematics but we had involve the subject areas because i think we need it across the board at all schools and elementary schools to just get for a number of reasons to encourage engineering perhaps as a as a career and more importantly to develop those analytical skills those problem solving skills that all of society needs no matter what discipline you're going to follow in life notes that you testified that quote middle school is probably the right time to weave in some of the basic engineering but too early to do any rigorous engineering time class middle school mathematics also need to be exposed to the concepts of engineering at the very basic level that's really would be my statement but more structure can show up in middle school where they really can connect and actually start doing some level of analysis because that by that time they're entering the algebra when they're in elementary school they're not they're dealing with fractions and decimals and very simple plastic things you can bring up some general concepts but as a transition in the middle school our experience lives at the court school is that they make that connection fairly strongly that we have programs for third fourth and fifth graders that still that struggle to make the connection for them to see what they're really looking at in terms of engineering but they're interested and we want to keep that continuum as we go into middle school anyone else want to comment on that begin the opportunity to do it and we were learning ourselves that they that they can go a long ways without realizing what they can do if we just afford the opportunity to explore and we certainly you know we back and we will make sure that we get to middle school that we elementary school we did that comment so welcome produce it anyway thank you that director remain open for two weeks for additional statements from the members in france with any follow up questions the committee may ask of the witnesses witnesses  hearing is now your and