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We Should Engineer Better Learning in Our Schools
Students should learn about both the natural world and human-made—or engineered—one we live in
Across the country, schools are grappling with academic fallout from the pandemic. Math and reading scores have plunged, while abseentism has skyrocketed. Covid exacerbated inequities and created new dilemmas. As a lifelong advocate for getting engineering education into schools, I wrestle with this crisis daily. More of the same—routine, textbook-based instruction—isn’t the solution we need. But moving engineering into the school day just might be.
Despite big tech’s ubiquity, U.S. students get very little engineering instruction. It isn’t in most schools’ core curriculum, and teachers face a lack of educational opportunities, even when they want to address the problem. My colleagues at the Museum of Science, Boston, and I have been working to change this by creating high-quality curricula for the last two decades, first through our pioneering Engineering is Elementary (EiE) program, which covers pre-K through eighth grade, and now through our freely accessible Youth Engineering Solutions (YES). We have seen firsthand how approaches like these improve student outcomes.
Massachusetts led the nation in introducing engineering in its K–12 science standards as early as 2001, informing science standards adopted by other states. Now, a new science framework for “the Nation’s Report Card”—the only nationally representative assessment of what our nation’s students know and can do in half a dozen subjects—includes engineering for the first time. The nonpartisan National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the Nation’s Report Card, developed the framework that will govern the content of science assessments from 2028 onward.
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In East Boston, the Bradley School has embraced engineering since 2018. From kindergarten onward, students participate in an innovative engineering-based class that engages them in designing technologies such as shoes at least twice a week. School leaders say this has profoundly improved student motivation and success, including a nine-point increase in students’ science scores on the state end-of-year test, the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS).
But this practice is not yet common enough. All too often, the “E” in STEM—“Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics”—is missing in K–12 education, particularly in the early grades.
It’s a missed opportunity. Across 604 classrooms in three states, a randomized controlled trial published in 2020 showed that careful integration of EiE engineering and science into lessons improved outcomes in both. When our “Now You’re Cooking” lesson invites kids to design their own solar ovens, for example, they explore the concept of thermal energy transfer while investigating the properties of material insulators and their environmental impacts. It’s an engaging way to teach science, math, engineering, reading and writing in one fell swoop.
Students should learn about both the natural scientific and human-made—or engineered—world we live in, after all, and not only because engineering and technical jobs are expected to grow at faster rates than most other occupations according to federal projections. We live in an engineered world, where young people must make smart, informed choices about technology and its consequences.
Learning engineering fosters children’s growth and potential to solve problems (not to mention teaching them persistence, a necessary part of the systematic, iterative process of engineering). In another YES unit we developed, students observe and record plastic debris around their schools, considering its impact on the environment. They then set about designing, testing and gradually improving technology to remove it. Students are most enthusiastic about projects that are relevant to their lives and communities, and open-ended like these. Such traits are inherent to engineering design challenges.
Not everyone realizes just how useful engineering instruction can be for teaching kids how to collaborate with others—so-called “soft skills.” One of my favorite YES lessons asks kindergarteners to come up with a shared design for a sun hat, which will shade parts of their head—face, ears or neck—from the sun’s rays. It’s not just the cuteness factor that makes this so much fun to observe. The students work in pairs. They must consider their own needs and those of others, fostering empathy and compromise.
With its hands-on approach and call for diverse perspectives, engineering can create more equitable learning. We’ve witnessed how engineering challenges disrupt unequal classroom dynamics. In a 2014 study, a much more diverse range of students self-identified as “smart” (or identified a more diverse set of their peers as “smart”) in engineering classrooms than in traditional classrooms. Another study found that teachers who provide students with engineering instruction are more likely than their peers to recommend underrepresented students for gifted and talented programs.
Integrating engineering instruction into other courses might just be the solution we need to our pandemic-related academic problems. Engineering increases student engagement and improves learning in science, math and literacy. It builds the kind of skills all children need—the ability to collaborate, think critically, problem solve and reflect on and improve upon their work. It offers ample opportunities for students to thrive.
Most teachers don’t receive the time, resources or professional learning needed to provide engineering instruction to their students. We must change that in order to make robust engineering a reality across K–12 classrooms. Providing free tools is a great start, but it is not enough on its own. In supporting educators to teach engineering, we provide youth with new ways of learning that nurture their ability to understand the world around them. We empower them to solve problems that affect themselves and their communities. And we prepare them to solve our society’s most pressing and complex problems. The status quo in education isn’t working. We can and should engineer better outcomes for our children.
This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of Scientific American.
