This week, Ars Technica posted a notable article on the annual Lemelson-MIT Invention Index. This Index captures how interested U.S. teens are in studying science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. This year, 77 percent expressed interest in STEM fields and pursuing a career in these areas - an eight percent drop from last year. The Index also found that when students were asked what career fields contributed the most to society’s well-being, teachers, doctors and scientists were ranked highest and accounted for 74 percent of the responses. Students believed that engineers contributed to a mere five percent of society’s well-being. This raises the question of whether or not teens understand exactly what engineers are and do. Teens have already experienced a high degree of interaction with teachers and doctors in their everyday life and therefore understand their job roles.

Based on this year’s Index findings and the decline in STEM education, it’ll take another few years to determine whether or not this is a long term trend. However, this does highlight the ongoing struggle in engaging high school students in STEM education. What do you think the U.S. needs to do to further educate teens in STEM fields? Do you believe the findings from this year’s Lemelson MIT Invention Index represent a growing long-term trend? Please share your thoughts with us on our Speak Up page!

Tags: education, Math, Science, STEM, U.S. teens

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 18th, 2010 at 8:27 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.