One day Ionnis Miaoulis took a wrong turn on his way to work. The dean of Tufts University's School of Engineering ended up in a local middle school parking lot, and Massachusetts' K–12 curriculum hasn't been the same since.
At the middle school, Miaoulis discovered inequities in the amount of science taught about the natural world compared to the amount taught about the human-made world, and he found that science instruction, in general, was geared toward boys. "Ninety-eight percent of what we teach in school science is the natural world, but 98 percent of the world students experience is man-made. If we are preparing students for the real world, why aren't we teaching them about human-made materials?" Miaoulis decided it was time to introduce engineering to the mainstream K–12 curriculum, and to make the subject appealing to both boys and girls.
In a proposal to the Massachusetts State Department of Education, Miaoulis and a team of colleagues charted five major reasons why engineering belongs in mainstream curriculum:
- Technological literacy is basic literacy. "If you don't understand the world around you and how it's made and works, then I can't say that you're a literate person," Miaoulis maintains.
- Engineering is a wonderful way to introduce project-based learning. It pulls together all the different subjects creatively, engaging learners at all levels, according to Miaoulis.
- It makes math and science relevant. This, Miaoulis claims, is extremely important when attracting girls to math and science. Studies show that girls are drawn to math and science when they can see the benefit of the science to the world. It's not a matter of ability that women aren't in engineering, he insists. It's a matter of interest.
- Engineering is economically important. Miaoulis believes an erosion of student interest in engineering in the United States is detrimental to the U.S. job market. "Some people argue that we can cheaply outsource everything," he says. "However, you cannot outsource engineering that keeps the local infrastructure going, you cannot outsource national defense equipment, and you probably would not want to outsource everything that you use in your day-to-day life—you would probably want materials made by someone who has lived in your country and understands cultural needs."
- Three-dimensional visualization is a basic and necessary skill conveyed by engineering. These days, Miaoulis notices, both boys and girls are focused more on communications—online, cell phones, TV—than on manipulating things in three dimensions. He argues that the ability to work in 3-D is essential for problem solving in the modern world.
Learning the Secret Lives of Machines
“Museums [need] to do more than check that no kids are left behind when the busses leave and the museum closes.”
—Ionnis Miaoulis on NCLB
Sometimes educators tell Miaoulis that engineering is just one more thing to cover and that there isn't time to fit it into science curriculum. So he asks them what they do cover. "And when they tell me they spent a month teaching volcanoes, but no time teaching about cars, I ask them, ‘How much time do kids spend in volcanoes as opposed to cars?’" Miaoulis appreciates the need for studying Earth sciences; he simply advocates for balance in what is taught about the natural world and what is taught about the world of materials made and used by humans. "To be able to be a country of innovation, and not just a country of consumers, we need to be able to attract the most brilliant people to engineering," Miaoulis insists.
Thanks to the work of Miaoulis, now the director of the Museum of Science in Boston, and his colleagues, engineering is now part of Massachusetts state standards and represents 25 percent of the state exam at the elementary and middle school level. Starting in 2007, engineering courses will be a requirement for high school graduation in Massachusetts. The museum is working at the national level to encourage states to adopt engineering standards by, among other initiatives, helping design engineering and technology standards and the assessments that accompany them. Check out the museum's Engineering is Elementary program (www.mos.org/doc/1545) for online, standards-aligned elementary-level engineering lessons.