Hirsch, L. S., & Berliner-Heyman, S. L., & Carpinelli, J. D., & Kimmel, H. S. (2012, June), Introducing Middle School Students to Engineering and the Engineering Design Process  Paper presented at 2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, San Antonio, Texas. 10.18260/1-2--21603

\bibitem{asee_peer_21603}
  Hirsch, L. S., \& Berliner-Heyman, S. L., \& Carpinelli, J. D., \& Kimmel, H. S. (2012, June), \emph{Introducing Middle School Students to Engineering and the Engineering Design Process}
  Paper presented at 2012 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, San Antonio, Texas.
  10.18260/1-2--21603

Linda S. Hirsch, Suzanne L. Berliner-Heyman, John D. Carpinelli, and Howard S. Kimmel.  "Introducing Middle School Students to Engineering and the Engineering Design Process".  2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, San Antonio, Texas, 2012, June.  ASEE Conferences, 2012.  https://peer.asee.org/21603 Internet.  15 Dec, 2024

\bibitem{asee_peer_21603}
  Linda S. Hirsch, Suzanne L. Berliner-Heyman, John D. Carpinelli, and Howard S. Kimmel.
  "Introducing Middle School Students to Engineering and the Engineering Design Process".
  \emph{2012 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, San Antonio, Texas, 2012, June}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2012.
  https://peer.asee.org/21603 Internet.  15 Dec, 2024

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_21603
author = "Linda S. Hirsch, Suzanne L. Berliner-Heyman, John D. Carpinelli, and Howard S. Kimmel"
title = "Introducing Middle School Students to Engineering and the Engineering Design Process"
booktitle = "2012 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition"
year = "2012"
month = "June"
address = "San Antonio, Texas"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/21603}
number = {10.18260/1-2--21603}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  -                Introducing Middle School Students to Engineering                      and the Engineering Design ProcessAbstractThe demand for a highly qualified workforce in the information and knowledge age of thecurrent global economy continues to put pressure on institutions of higher education toproduce more engineers. However, the number of students choosing to study engineeringcontinues to fall short of the actual and projected needs. Research on engineering recruitmentindicates that most potential college students do not really know what engineers do, areunaware of the benefits that engineering provides people in their daily lives, and have fewadults discussing careers in engineering with them. As a result, they never develop an interestin engineering, nor are they prepared academically to study engineering in college. One ofthe more critical reasons for this is that most students, particularly those fromunderrepresented populations in urban school districts, are not exposed to engineering duringtheir K-12 studies. High-quality curricular materials related to engineering, particularly formiddle school students are lacking and most teachers have not been trained to incorporateengineering topics into their curriculum and instruction. As a result, increasing the presenceof engineering in K-12 education, especially through the application of the engineeringdesign process, has become a high priority.The ____ at ____ offers a variety of summer programs designed to increase high achievingmiddle school students’ interest in the fields of science, technology, engineering andmathematics (STEM). Programs such as these can be instrumental in informing youngstudents about careers in STEM, especially engineering, and help ensure they receive theacademic background required for college study. One of the programs recruits fifth, sixthand seventh grade students from traditionally underserved and typically underrepresentedpopulations who would not otherwise be exposed to engineering during their middle schoolyears.The academic curriculum is aligned with state Core Curriculum Content Standards. Inaddition to classroom lessons, students participate in hands-on activities, laboratoryexperiments, and group activities including team-build exercises, and go on field trips. Thestudents visit research facilities where they are introduced to engineers and have theopportunity to see first-hand the career options available to them if they should choose tostudy engineering. On the first day of the program students are presented with a scenario thatcontains a core problem to be solved. Students are assigned to work in teams of four, receivean introduction to the Engineering Design Process (EDP), are taught how to apply the EDP indeveloping and testing a prototype, and are required to make a presentation about theirsolution to the core problem. Presentations must include an outline of how the EDP wasapplied and a demonstration of their prototype. Programs such as this provide aninterdisciplinary, project-based learning environment that draws mostly on math, science, andtechnology and offers major benefits to education at all levels, as it fosters essential 21stcentury skills such as problem-solving, communication, teamwork, independence,imagination, creativity. Preliminary data analysis indicates most students demonstratedadequate understanding of the engineering design process by the end of the program.
AU  - Linda S. Hirsch
AU  - Suzanne L. Berliner-Heyman
AU  - John D. Carpinelli
AU  - Howard S. Kimmel
CY  - San Antonio, Texas
DA  - 2012/06/10
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Introducing Middle School Students to Engineering and the Engineering Design Process
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/21603
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--21603
ER  -