AC 2011-227: ELEMENTARY ENGINEERING IMPLEMENTATION AND STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES

K-12 schools across the nation are implementing or considering various curricula that use engineering. From high school curricula that are fairly comprehensive (eg. Project Lead the Way) to textbooks intended for middle or high school courses (e.g. Survey of Engineering from Great Lakes Press) to elementary school afterschool clubs based on activities from engineering societies and more comprehensive sets of activities (e.g. Engineering is Elementary from the Museum of Science, Boston), enthusiam for engineering in K-12 is increasing. These curricular activities’ foci include increasing technological literacy and encouraging students to pursue engineering. Although those who are engineers are enthusiatic about this trend, to date, there is only cursory assessment data available to indicate the efficacy of any of these approaches to meeting their respective goals. Consequently, there is no guarantee that the overall effect on the fields of engineering will be positive, if these activities become nothing more than an educational “fad.” Solid research on the ability of engineering curricula to support solid student learning is needed. This manuscript describes a project designed to comprehensively assess student learning with an elementary school curriculum (Engineering is Elementary) and a comprehensive implementation in math, science, language arts, social studies and technological literacy. North Carolina State University Colleges of Engineering and Education have partnered with two North Carolina public elementary schools and the Museum of Science, Boston to support existing implementations of engineering magnet elementary schools. The pilot test implementation at an initial test site has been researched with regards to student learning in design, engineering, and science; student attitudes toward STEM content; and teacher implementation and effectiveness.