I 
110TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 1492 
To provide for the establishment at the National Science Foundation of 
a program to promote and assist the teaching of inventiveness and innovation. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
MARCH 13, 2007 
Mr. HONDA introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee 
on Science and Technology, and in addition to the Committee on Edu-
cation and Labor, for a period to be subsequently determined by the 
Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within 
the jurisdiction of the committee concerned 
A BILL 
To provide for the establishment at the National Science 
Foundation of a program to promote and assist the 
teaching of inventiveness and innovation. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Innovations for our 
Nation’s Vital Educational Needs for Technology Act’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
The Congress finds the following: 
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(1) Invention, the wellspring of innovation, is 
the basic source of the economic wellbeing and qual-
ity of life enjoyed in the developed world today. 
(2) There have been enormous differences in 
the capabilities of different societies to invent, to 
carry the inventions into practice, and to adopt the 
inventions of other societies, and maintaining those 
capabilities will be key for the future wellbeing of 
the United States. 
(3) Federal support of individual investigators 
doing basic research has been effective in leading to 
scientific discovery, but less effective in enabling 
those investigators to turn those discoveries into in-
vention. 
(4) The process of invention and the traits of 
the inventive mind can be enhanced by education 
and fostered by appropriate societal support. 
(5) In formal education, every student deserves 
the opportunity to learn more about the nature of 
invention and to acquire some simple basic skills and 
generative attitudes. 
SEC. 3. INVENTIVENESS CURRICULUM MATERIALS. 
(a) ESTABLISHMENT OF PROGRAM.—The National 
Science Foundation shall establish a competitive grant 
program, with the goal of developing, and making avail-
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able for use at the elementary, secondary, and under-
graduate levels within 2 years after the date of enactment 
of this Act, curriculum tools that will help foster inventive-
ness. 
(b) MATERIALS.—The curriculum materials devel-
oped under the program established under this section 
shall— 
(1) leverage existing knowledge on how the in-
ventive mind works on behalf of a more inventive so-
ciety to address key challenges of today’s world, 
through— 
(A) emphasizing adventure, excitement, 
and mystery as much as the analytical and 
technical side of invention; 
(B) encouraging inventive thinking that 
crosses boundaries of convention, expectation, 
and disciplines; and 
(C) anticipating that there will be unantici-
pated consequences of invention, an enduring 
lesson from history; 
(2) strengthen those aspects of the education 
process that enhance creativity in general, and tech-
nological inventiveness in particular, including— 
(A) open-ended, problem solving assign-
ments; 
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