Adding E into STEM to Teach & Inspire Future Engineers

The 21st century’s dramatic technological revolution requires graduating more engineers to cope with new global exigencies and to develop new manufacturing processes and products, as well as manage energy, transportation and communications systems to prevent new and redress old environmental problems, create pioneering health care devices, and, in general, make technology respond to ever increasing demands (Flexner Report, 2007, Arnett and Van Horn, 2009). Despite this increased need for engineering professionals, the numbers of students studying engineering have declined in recent years, both in the United States and globally (Johnson and Russell, 2006). Many factors have contributed to this decline – including the difficulty of the curriculum, lack of well-prepared K-12 Sience , Technology , Engineering and Math(STEM) teachers, and the attractiveness of alternate paths to good technical jobs and uncertain employment paths for engineering graduates (Besterfield-Sacre Atman, & Schulma