Developing Engineering Skills in Secondary Students Through STEM Project Based Learning

The development of 21st century skills allows the training of competent students prepared for work and social life. The improvement of these skills, necessary for engineering students and future engineers, can be favored with training in Secondary Education Stage. Specifically, the Project-Based Learning (PBL) methodology includes the performance of different activities that allow the acquisition of both conceptual and procedural skills. This article describes the relationship between the skills that high school students develop when they work with PBL and the competences (ABET engineering skills) they acquire. In addition, an objective evaluation of the learning outcomes of 129 Secondary students who carried out 34 projects is made and these results are related to the skills needed to achieve them.