Engineering, but how?

Abstract

One of the most significant labor shortages the United States has is technologically oriented people. Every year our government accepts more and more people from foreign countries on work visas to place them in technology-related fields. Although we are doing more than we have in the past to give our students opportunities to become technologically literate, too often educators place students in front of computers and assume that computer literacy follows. Students need more than the computers and their programs. This article presents information about a 21 st century program created in 1996: a comprehensive engineering program at Madison West High School within blocks of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin.