Engineering education in the K-12 curriculum

Abstract

Educators and parents have long accepted, as obvious, the fact that students who perform well in mathematics and physics are the best candidates for becoming future engineering students. While in fact a good number of these students do not succeed in engineering studies, and some of them end up doing something else in their professional life. This paper tries to prove that in the K-12 curriculum students are not prepared to the concepts that underlie the engineering programs. On the other hand, the paper will try to prove that some basic concepts may be introduced in the curriculum from a very early stage to enhance not only the scientific knowledge but also other high mental skills needed for engineering studies, and other technical competencies. To illustrate its statements the paper will use as case study the Lebanese Curriculum adopted in 1996. The paper will build on the conceptualization theory, mainly the Conceptual Fields approach, to illustrate how such integration may be achieved by adopting a constructive and practical driven approach to introduce and master the cross disciplinary knowledge needed in engineering studies. Such an approach will have its impact not only on the curriculum content but also on the teaching and learning strategies to be implemented within the K-12 educational system.