How Can STEM Programs Prepare K-12 Students for Science and Tech Job Opportunities?

AUSTIN, Texas - Nov. 23, 2020 - PRLog -- October 1957 was a wake-up call for the American education system.

That month, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite. As it crossed the night sky, the American public began to ask, "what had gone wrong? How could the Russians beat us into space?"

Suddenly the excitement about Detroit's new space-age car designs (such as the longer, lower, wider Chevrolet Impala introduced that fall) seemed irrelevant in light of an artificial satellite floating overhead, emitting its characteristic "beep beep" radio signal.

Indeed, Sputnik put an exclamation point on the argument put forward in 1955 by Rudolf Flesch in his best-selling book Johnny Can't Read—And What You Can Do About.

The Space Race was born. In February 1958, President Eisenhower established the Advanced Research Projects Agency (later DARPA), which brought industry and government together to create some of the most important advanced technologies that power our economy today, from advanced robotics to the Internet.

And the American education system (despite criticism of some its later pedagogical approaches, such as "New Math") benefitted greatly from the Space Race, thanks to greater investment in the study of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics – the subjects we today collectively refer to as STEM.

Are We Having Another Sputnik Moment?

Sixty-seven years after Sputnik, the US is facing another crisis, the Covid-19 pandemic.

And, like the sudden appearance of Sputnik, the pandemic has exposed critical, systemic problems in the US economy and our education system.

For the first time in years, the American public has come to understand the limitations of our domestic manufacturing base. In times of emergency, we don't have the manufacturing capacity here at home to supply urgently needed goods, such as PPE or pharmaceuticals.

But Covid-19 has also exposed a more insidious problem as well – a widespread lack of trust in science and, at times, an even willful repudiation of public health scientists and their research by those with a high school degree or less.

According to research by the Pew Institute, while a majority (54%) of Americans with a postgraduate degree have a great deal of confidence in scientists, the number drops to a minority (only 32%) among those with a high school degree (or less).

For STEM education professionals, this is an alarming development, one that is compounded by a widespread lack of scientific literacy among the general public. (See our article on medical literacy for ways to address this in healthcare.)

Read more...https://formaspace.com/articles/education/how-can-stem-pr...