Celeste Baine's thoughts, perceptions and ideas about marketing engineering education.

Celeste Baine's Blog

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  Formerly known as the Engineering Education Advocate

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Books by Celeste Baine

Engineers Make a Difference: Motivating Students to Pursue an Engineering Education

Sustainable Energy Engineering Teacher's Guide

Aerospace Engineering Teacher's Guide

Mechanical Engineering Teacher's Guide

Engineering Principles Teacher's Guide

Engineering Graphics Teacher's Guide

Aeronautical Engineering Teacher's Guide

Civil Engineering Teacher's Guide

Teaching Engineering Made Easy: A Friendly Introduction to Engineering Activities for Middle School Teachers

The Musical Engineer: A Music Enthusiast's Guide to Engineering and Technology Careers

The Fantastical Engineer: A Thrillseeker's Guide to Careers in Theme Park Engineering - Second Edition

High Tech Hot Shots: Careers in Sports Engineering

Is There an Engineer Inside You?: A Comprehensive Guide to Career Decisions in Engineering

50 Reasons to Teach Engineering

This list could also be called, “50 Reasons to Become an Engineer.” They work hand in hand.

With a little creativity, any one of these reasons can become a lesson or discussion about engineering careers and serve as a catapult to further exploration.

1. 48 countries (2.8 billion people) could face fresh water shortages by 2025.
2. To save the rainforests.
3. Population in developed countries will age and engineers can help develop assistive technologies so aging people can maintain healthy, productive lifestyles.
4. To give the underserved a clear path to family wage careers.
5. To give students whose talents lie with the concrete rather than the abstract an avenue to success.
6. To make sure students who excel at abstract academics can make the transition to concrete applications and specific problem-solving.
7. To give women another venue for success.
8. To enlighten students who don’t know what engineering is about.
9. To save rare or exotic animals from extinction.
10. To educate a potential President of the United States.
11. To help the energy crisis by finding new ways to produce or store solar, wind, wave, geothermal and other sources of energy.
12. To find ways to make nuclear waste non-toxic.
13. To develop safe nuclear energy.
14. To help find a cure for AIDS.
15. To help develop new medicines for numerous diseases.
16. To invent smaller, more affordable computers.
17. To make better theme parks and safer roller coasters.
18. To keep up with the technology needs of society.
19. So the U.S. won’t lose all its power to other countries.
20. To give students the tools they need for their futures.
21. To reverse engineer the brain.
22. To counter the violence of terrorists.
23. To improve methods of instruction and learning.
24. To create better virtual reality systems.
25. To capture carbon dioxide.
26. To sustain the infrastructure of cities and living spaces.
27. To explore other galaxies.
28. To understand more about our planet.
29. To reduce our vulnerability to assaults in cyberspace.
30. To prevent devastation from hurricanes and other natural disasters.
31. To improve transportation on land, sea and air.
32. To improve our connectivity and ability to communicate with family and friends.
33. To help us save money on everything.
34. To keep us safe at home and in other countries.
35. To lessen our vulnerability to disease.
36. To improve the quality of the air we breathe.
37. To help our pets live longer.
38. To aid veterinarians in caring for animals.
39. To make food taste better.
40. To make food better for our health.
41. To prevent car accidents with better traffic infrastructure.
42. To create greener buildings and systems that minimize our footprint on the Earth.
43. To understand the oceans and their ability to help us.
44. To reduce the impact of war.
45. To lessen the need for war.
46. To enhance the beauty of our surroundings.
47. To have better furniture and computer peripherals that reduce our risk of carpal tunnel or back pain.
48. To save the polar bears and other endangered species.
49. To get more people where they need to go quickly, safely and conveniently.
50. To decrease the incidence of disease and famine.
    
    
    - Exclusive reprint from Engineers Make a Difference.

Celeste's Top 10 List of K-12 Engineering Education Programs

Amended on Monday, Dec. 15, 2008. - Now, this list is the top 11 K-12 Engineering Education Programs

Almost every time I present at a conference or attend an engineering event, a school district administrator or teacher asks me what engineering programs or curriculum are available. Usually, this person is charged with the responsibility of implementing a standards-based engineering academy or program in their school or district. They invariably want something easy, proven and engaging for the teachers and students.

If you want to know what is going on in engineering education around the United States, this list is for you. However, it's not all-inclusive. These are just a few of the more popular approaches to implementing engineering at the K-12 level.

1. Engineering the Future (EtF): Science, Technology, and the Design Process (www.keypress.com/etf) is a laboratory course for the first year of high school science, created to help a broad spectrum of students. EtF is a full-year lab course organized around four projects, each of which is divided into several tasks. The entire course can be implemented on a modest budget.
   
   
2. Engineering is Elementary - This project develops curricular materials in engineering and technology education for children in grades K-5 (www.mos.org). Educator support includes lesson plans, assessment materials, and professional development programs that tie into other major content areas, including science and language arts.
   
   
3. Project Lead the Way (PLTW) - is a non-profit organization that promotes engineering courses for middle (Gateway to Technology) and high school (Pathway to Engineering) students.  The program formally partners with school districts, trains the instructors that will be teaching and implementing the curriculum, and acts as a bridge between educational institutions and private businesses. (www.pltw.org)
   
   
4. The Infinity Project is a national high school and early college math- and science-based engineering and technology education initiative that helps educators deliver a maximum of engineering exposure with a minimum of training, expense and time.  Created to help students see the real value of math and science and its varied applications to high tech engineering.  (www.infinity-project.org)
   
   
5. The Ford Partnership for Advanced Studies (Ford PAS) is an academically rigorous, interdisciplinary curriculum and program that provides students with content knowledge and skills necessary for future success in such areas as business, economics, engineering, and technology.  The inquiry and project-based program offers a series of modules that links learning in traditional academic subjects with the challenges students will face in post-secondary education. (www.fordpas.org)
   
   
6. Materials World Modules focus on materials engineering – books, kits and training for middle and high school students. (www.materialsworldmodules.org)
   
   
7. Salvadori Center focuses on improving children’s content understanding and problem-solving skills by using project-based learning that focuses on the built environment. (www.salvadori.org)
   
   
8. Stuff That Works is technology curriculum for the elementary grades.  City Technology introduces children across the country to the basics of design technology through curriculum materials, teacher resources, and professional development. (citytechnology.ccny.cuny.edu)
   
   
9. Children Designing and Engineering - Produced by the College of New Jersey, Children Designing and Engineering are teacher instructional guides that describe how to adapt activities for different populations, and provide hints for managing design-based learning. (www.childrendesigning.org)
   
   
10. Teachengineering.org - Funded as part of the NSF-supported National Science Digital Library (NSDL) to provide educational resources for STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education.  TeachEngineering.org is a searchable, web-based digital library collection populated with standards-based engineering curricula for use by K-12 teachers and engineering faculty. (www.teachengineering.org)
    
    
11. Engineering byDesign - The International Technology Education Association's Center to Advance the Teaching of Technology and Science (ITEA-CATTS) has developed the only standards-based national model for Grades K-12 that delivers technological literacy. The model, Engineering byDesign™ is built on Standards for Technological Literacy (ITEA); Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (NCTM); and Project 2061, Benchmarks for Science Literacy (AAAS). http://www.engineeringbydesign.org

But that's not all, a few companies are also working to bring engineering education into focus by creating learning laboratories. A few of the more prominent and proven examples include:

• Pitsco’s Engineering Academy is a continuum of hands-on curriculum that provides engaging, standards based content in STEM.  Three years of teacher-led, student responsible projects are presented with real-world engineering fields and contexts such as aeronautical, mechanical, civil, rocketry, robotic, automotive and green engineering. Each engineering context spans nine weeks (one quarter) of content and experiences. Contact Josh Gaddy
  
  
• PCS Edventures Academy of Engineering (AOE) is a mobile engineering laboratory that combines hands-on activities with either Fischertechnik® or LEGO® Manipulatives to teach students science, technology, engineering, math, architecture, communications, robotics and more.  It’s a STEM solution with hundreds of hours of course work and activities.  The program also includes online teacher training, student assessment and support, and a virtual online community that includes quarterly engineering challenges and at-home extensions (www.edventures.com/AOE).
  
  
• Electronic Circuits for the Evil Genius provides about 100 hours of electronic hardware training for ages 13+. Meets Canadian standards for high school electronics classes (www.elxevilgenius.com).

If you want more information about technology and engineering resources, visit the Boston Museum of Science’s teacher-reviewed selection of the best standards-based technology and engineering curriculum resources for your classroom at http://www.mos.org/tec.