Studying Engineering Before They Can Spell It: NYT FRONTPAGE, By Winnie Hu (June 14, 2010) To compete in a global economy, some school districts are offering engineering lessons to students in kindergarten. “…the big bad wolf had to do more than just huff and puff to blow down the three little pigs’ house. To start, he needed to get past a voice-activated security gate, find a hidden door and negotiate a few other traps in a house that a pair of kindergartners here imagined for the pigs — and then pieced together from index cards, paper cups, wood sticks and pipe cleaners.” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/education/14engineering.html?_r=1&emc=eta1 This is all part of the Engineering is Elementary program… http://www.mos.org/eie/
Much of K-12 Math and Science has a focus on the naturally-evolved world, but good a grounding in the human-made world is equally important. For example, even students in Kindergarten know how they got to school – by walking,bus, car, etc. And learning about transportation as a service system is important. Eventually, K-12 will be learning about holistic service systems without even knowing it, as they learn about cities they are learning about – transportation, water/air, food/products, energy, communications, buildings, retail/hospitality/media/entertainment, finance, health, education, security-governance.