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Creating, Tinkering, Inventing and Imagining Our Way to the Top If you were to peek through the door of most preschool classrooms or observe young children playing at home, you would likely find kids creating, tinkering, inventing and imagining. eir hands would be busy and their minds would be racing a hundred miles a minute with all different types of creative possibilities: A roller coaster using foam pipe insulation! A rocket from a plastic water bottle! A bridge from paper and tape! ese kids are engineers. Most just don't know it. Yet. A recent study conducted by Intel Corporation revealed that 63 percent of teens have never considered a field in engineering. Additionally, 44 percent said they would consider engineering as a career if they knew more about it. Bingo. By exposing children to STEM-related classes beginning at age 4, we can help inspire them to consider engineering as a career. Many of our youngest students at Engineering for Kids® are females. is is not statistically true in most fields of engineering. We need to catch girls while they are still young, and have not yet received gender stereotypes that may lead them away from an interest in engineering. We hope that through the classes, camps and parties we offer, both boys and girls will realize that the majority of engineers in the world -- the ones who solve big-deal problems and invent all kinds of helpful gadgets and gizmos -- do not wear blue and white striped hats and red bandanas around their necks. We hope they realize that they have already been in training as engineers as they have created, tinkered, invented and imagined. Engineers use science, technology, engineering and math to change the world in both small and big ways. ough engineering education has been virtually absent from most elementary schools, plenty of classrooms around the United States teach science and math in a fun way. Many teachers are innovative and inspiring. What is different, then, about STEM education and its importance to the future success of our workforce? • Integrated: For starters, it is an integrated approach to presenting and solving real-world problems. Students may work to design a bridge using a limited number of index cards to support a specific amount of weight. Civil Engineering Civil Engineering • Cooperative: STEM education mimics professions in the real world because of its collaborative nature. Students are encouraged to bounce ideas off one another and learn from each other's mistakes and successes. • Applauds failure as a step toward learning: One of the most important elements in a successful STEM program is what the students learn when their projects, plans and ideas fail. Many classrooms in the United States frown upon failure and are shamed when their less-than-superior standardized test scores are printed in the local paper. e total number of jobs in the United States is projected to grow by 10 percent between 2008 and 2018. e total number of STEM-related jobs is projected to grow by 17 percent during the same period of time, leaving 2.4 million job openings in STEM fields by 2018. If we can introduce children to STEM-related fields at a young age and encourage them that an integrated, cooperative approach to learning from our failures is vitally important to their education and the future success of our nation, we will have done our job. We will have inspired the next generation of engineers. For Information on how to get your child enrolled and inspired contact us at www.EngineeringforKids.net or give us a call at 540.288.1335 Special Section by Engineering for Kids® • www.engineeringforkids.net • 540.288.1335 22 Fredericksburg Parent and Family • May 2013