The United States continues to face many energy challenges. The country has a growing demand for electricity coupled with a need to reduce carbon emissions as well as its dependency on imported energy sources. We must also ensure the availability of supplies and contribute to economic growth by providing affordable, sustainable and reliable energy.
Meeting these challenges requires a vision and planning for the long term. This preparation must include necessary materials and resources, and importantly, where to find the engineering talent prepared to meet these needs. Having an elite pool of engineers who can design, innovate, and provide solutions for these challenges requires a robust educational system and exposure to math and science at an early age.
In a recent article on the IEEE’s online monthly Today’s Engineer, Julie Thompson looks at the need to improve the U.S.’s STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) programs.
Thompson points out that “creating new engineers isn’t a luxury, but a necessity for America. While only four percent of the nation’s workforce is composed of scientists and engineers, these professionals help create jobs for the other 96 percent, according to the National Science Board.”
The article goes on to say that in this battle to educate the next generation, the T.J. Smull College of Engineering at Ohio Northern University has created a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering Education to educate teachers who can accurately introduce K-12 students to engineering. The four-year degree, which will launch this fall, will prepare graduates to become licensed secondary math teachers but with a more specialized perspective than teachers who have a traditional education diploma.
Read the entire article from IEEE-USA Today’s Engineer Online.
